*- 


I 

THE 


SLAVE    TRADE, 


k  aitir  Jfurrip: 


WHY    IT    EXISTS,   AND    HOW   IT    MAY   BE 
EXTINGUISHED. 


BY  H.   C.   CAKEY, 

MJTUOR  OF  "PRINCIPLES  OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY,"  "THE  PAST,  THE   PRESENT,   AND 
THE  FUTURE,"  ETC.  ETC. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

HENRY     CAREY     BAIRD, 

INDUSTRIAL    PUBLISHER, 
No.    406    WALNUT    STREET, 

1872. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PlOB 

THE  WIDE  EXTENT  OF  SLAVERY 5 

CHAPTER  II. 
OF  SLAVERY  IN  THE  BRITISH  COLONIES 8 

CHAPTER  III. 
OF  SLAVERY  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 15 

CHAPTER   IV. 
OF  EMANCIPATION  IN  THE  BRITISH  COLONIES 21 

CHAPTER  V. 

How  MAN  PASSES  FROM  POVERTY  AND  SLAVERY  TOWARD  WEALTH  AND 
FREEDOM 35 

CHAPTER  VI. 
How  WEALTH  TENDS  TO  INCREASE 43 

CHAPTER  VII. 
How  LABOUR  ACQUIRES  VALUE  AND  MAN  BECOMES  FREE 52 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

How   MAN    PASSES    FROM   WEALTH  AND   FREEDOM   TOWARD   POVERTY 
AND  SLAVERY 62 

CHAPTER   IX. 

How  SLAVERY  GREW,  AND  HOW  IT  is  NOW  MAINTAINED,  IN  THE  WEST 

INDIES 74     ' 

3 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  X. 

PAOB 

'    How  SLAVERY  GREW  AND  is  MAINTAINED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 95 

CHAPTER  XI. 
How  SLAVERY  GROWS  IN  PORTUGAL  AND  TURKEY 117 

CHAPTER  XII. 
How  SLAVERY  GROWS  IN  INDIA 130 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
How  SLAVERY  GROWS  IN  IRELAND  AND  SCOTLAND 174 

CHAPTER   XIV. 
How  SLAVERY  GROWS  IN  ENGLAND 209 

CHAPTER  XV. 
N.     How  CAN  SLAVERY  BE  EXTINGUISHED? 294 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
How  FREEDOM  GROWS  IN  NORTHERN  GERMANY 308 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
How  FREEDOM  GROWS  IN  RUSSIA 326 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
How  FREEDOM  GROWS  IN  DENMARK 340 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
How  FREEDOM  GROWS  IN  SPAIN  AND  BELGIUM 350 

CHAPTER  XX. 

\QF  THE  DUTY  OF  THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 363 

CHAPTER   XXL 
OF  THE  DUTY  OF  THE  PEOPLE  OF  ENGLAND 396 


THE 

SLATE     TRADE, 

DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN. 

^A -.        •';.      ' 

vu  .-  v"  CHAPTER  I. 

r  *-? 

THE   WIDE   EXTENT  OF   SLAVERY. 

/  SLAVERY  still  exists  throughout  a  large  portion  of  what  we  are 
accustomed  to  regard  as  the  civilized  world.  In  some  countries, 
men  are  forced  to  take  the  chance  of  a  lottery  for  the  determina 
tion  of  the  question  whether  they  shall  or  shall  not  be  transported 
to  distant  and  unhealthy  countries,  there  most  probably  to  perish, 
leaving  behind  them  impoverished  mothers  and  sisters  to  lament 
their  fate.  In  others,  they  are  seized  on  the  highway  and  sent  to 
sea  for  long  terms  of  years,  while  parents,  wives,  and  sisters,  who 
had  been  dependent  on  their  exertions,  are  left  to  perish  of  starva 
tion,  or  driven  to  vice  or  crime  to  procure  the  means  of  support. 
In  a  third  class,  men,  their  wives,  and  children,  are  driven  from 
their  homes  to  perish  in  the  road,  or  to  endure  the  slavery  of  de 
pendence  on  public  charity  until  pestilence  shall  send  them  to  their 
graves,  and  thus  clear  the  way  for  a  fresh  supply  of  others  like 
themselves.  In  a  fourth,  we  see  men  driven  to  selling  themselves 
for  long  periods  at  hard  labour  in  distant  countries,  deprived  of  the 
society  of  parents,  relatives,  or  friends.  In  a  fifth,  men,  women, 
and  children  are  exposed  to  sale,  and  wives  are  separated  from  hus 
bands,  while  children  are  separated  from  parents.  In  some,  white 
men,  and,  in  others,  black  men,  are  subjected  to  the  lash,  and  to 
other  of  the  severest  and  most  degrading  punishments.  In  some 
places  men  are  deemed  valuable,  and  they  are  well  fed  and  clothed. 

l*  5 


In  others,  man  is  regarded  as  "a  drug"  and  population  as  "a 
nuisance;"  and  Christian  men  are  warned  that  their  duty  to  God 
and  to  society  requires  that  they  should  permit  their  fellow-crea 
tures  to  suffer  every  privation  and  distress,  short  of  "  absolute 
death/ '  with  a  view  to  prevent  the  increase  of  numbers. 

Among  these  various  classes  of  slaves,  none  have  recently  at 
tracted  so  much  attention  as  those  of  the  negro  race ;  and  it  is  in 
reference  to  that  race  in  this  country  that  the  following  paper  has 
recently  been  circulated  throughout  England  : — 

"  The  affectionate  and  Christian  Address  of  many  thousands  of  the 
Women  of  England  to  their  Sisters,  the  Women  of  the  United  States 
of  America: 

"A  common  origin,  a  common  faith,  and,  we  sincerely  believe,  a 
common  cause,  urge  us  at  the  present  moment  to  address  you  on  the 
subject  of  that  system  of  negro  slavery  which  still  prevails  so  exten 
sively,  and,  even  under  kindly-disposed  masters,  with  such  frightful 
results,  in  many  of  the  vast  regions  of  the  Western  World. 

"  We  will  not  dwell  on  the  ordinary  topics — on  the  progress  of 
civilization ;  on  the  advance  of  freedom  everywhere ;  on  the  rights 
and  requirements  of  the  nineteenth  century ; — but  we  appeal  to  you 
very  seriously  to  reflect,  and  to  ask  counsel  of  God,  how  far  such  a 
state  of  things  is  in  accordance  with  His  holy  word,  the  inalienable 
rights  of  immortal  souls,  and  the  pure  and  merciful  spirit  of  the 
Christian  religion. 

"  We  do  not  shut  our  eyes  to  the  difficulties,  nay,  the  dangers,  that 
might  beset  the  immediate  abolition  of  that  long-established  system : 
we  see  and  admit  the  necessity  of  preparation  for  so  great  an 
event.  But,  in  speaking  of  indispensable  preliminaries,  we  cannot 
be  silent  on  those  laws  of  your  country  which  (in  direct  contravention 
of  God's  own  law,  instituted  in  the  time  of  man's  innocancy)  deny,  in 
effect,  to  the  slave,  the  sanctity  of  marriage,  with  all  its  joys,  rights, 
and  obligations ;  which  separates,  at  the  will  of  the  master,  the  wife 
from  the  husband  and  the  children  from  the  parents.  Nor  can  we 
be  silent  on  that  awful  system  which,  either  by  statute  or  by  custom, 
interdicts  to  any  race  of  man,  or  any  portion  of  the  human  family, 
education  in  the  truths  of  the  gospel  and  the  ordinances  of  Christianity. 

"A  remedy  applied  to  these  two  evils  alone  would  commence  the 
amelioration  of  their  sad  condition.  We  appeal,  then,  to  you  as  sis 
ters,  as  wives,  and  as  mothers,  to  raise  your  voices  to  your  fellow- 
citizens  and  your  prayers  to  God,  for  the  removal  of  this  affliction 
from  the  Christian  world.  We  do  not  say  these  things  in  a  spirit  of 
self-complacency,  as  though  our  nation  were  free  from  the  guilt  .it 
perceives  in  others.  We  acknowledge  with  grief  and  shame  our  heavy 
share  in  this  great  sin.  We  acknowledge  that  our  forefathers  intro 
duced,  nay,  compelled  the  adoption  of  slavery  in  those  mighty  colo 
nies.  We  humbly  confess  it  before  Almighty  God.  And  it  is  because 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  7 

we  so  deeply  feel,  and  so  unfeignedly  avow  our  own  complicity,  that 
we  now  venture  to  implore  your  aid  to  wipe  away  our  common  crime 
and  our  common  dishonour." 

We  have  here  a  movement  that  cannot  fail  to  be  productive  of 
much  good.  It  was  time  that  the  various  nations  of  the  world 
should  have  their  attention  called  to  the  existence  of  slavery  within 
their  borders,  and  to  the  manifold  evils  of  which  it  was  the  parent; 
and  it  was  in  the  highest  degree  proper  that  woman  should  take 
the  lead  in  doing  it,  as  it  is  her  sex  that  always  suffers  most  in  that 
condition  of  things  wherein  might  triumphs  over  right,  and  which 
we  are  accustomed  to  define  as  a  state  of  slavery. 

How  shall  slavery  be  abolished  ?  This  is  the  great  question  of 
our  day.  But  a  few  years  since  it  was  answered  in  England  by 
an  order  for  the  immediate  emancipation  of  the  black  people  held  to 
slavery  in  her  colonies;  and  it  is  often  urged  that  we  should  follovi 
her  example.  Before  doing  this,  however,  it  would  appear  to  bo 
proper  to  examine  into  the  past  history  and  present  situation  of  the 
negro  race  in  the  two  countries,  with  a  view  to  determine  how  far 
experience  would  warrant  the  belief  that  the  course  thus  urged 
upon  us  would  be  likely  to  produce  improvement  in  the  condi 
tion  of  the  objects  of  our  sympathy.  Should  the  result  of  such 
an  examination  be  to  prove  that  the  cause  of  freedom  has  been  ad 
vanced  by  the  measures  there  pursued,  our  duty  to  our  fellow-men 
would  require  that  we  should  follow  in  the  same  direction,  at  what- 
>•  ever  loss  or  inconvenience  to  ourselves.  Should  it,  however,  prove 
that  the  condition  of  the  poor  negro  has  been  impaired  and  not 
improved,  it  will  then  become  proper  to  enquire  what  have  been  m 
past  times  the  circumstances  under  which  men  have  become  more 
free,  with  a  view  to  ascertain  wherein  lies  the  deficiency,  and  why 
it  is  that  freedom  now  so  obviously  declines  in  various  and  import 
ant  portions  of  the  earth.  These  things  ascertained,  it  may  be  that 
there  will  be  little  difficulty  in  determining  what  are  the  measures 
now  needed  for  enabling  all  men,  black,  white,  and  brown,  to  obtain 
for  themselves,  and  profitably  to  all,  the  exercise  of  the  rights  of 
freemen.  To  adopt  this  course  will  be  to  follow  in  that  of  the 
skilful  physician,  who  always  determines  within  himself  the  cau.se 
of  fever  before  he  prescribes  the  remedy. 


8  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

,      .  •  :  I 

CHAPTER  II. 

OF    SLAVERY  IN   THE   BRITISH   COLONIES. 

AT  the  date  of  the  surrender  of  Jamaica  to  the  British  arms,  in 
1655,  the  slaves,  who  were  few  in  number,  generally  escaped  to 
the  mountains,  whence  they  kept  up  a  war  of  depredation,  until  at 
length  an  accommodation  was  effected  in  1734,  the  terms  of  which 
were  not,  however,  complied  with  by  the  whites — the  consequences 
of  which  will  be  shown  hereafter.  Throughout  the  whole  period 
their  numbers  were  kept  up  by  the  desertion  of  other  slaves,  and 
to  this  cause  must,  no  doubt,  be  attributed  much  of  the  bitterness 
with  which  the  subsequent  war  was  waged. 

In  1658,  the  slave  population  of  the  island  was  1400.  By  1670 
it  had  reached  8000,  and  in  1673,  9504.*  From  that  date  we 
have  no  account  until  1734,  when  it  was  86,546,  giving  an  increase 
in  sixty-one  years  of  77,000.  It  was  in  1673  that  the  sugar-cul 
ture  was  commenced ;  and  as  profitable  employment  was  thus  found 
for  labour,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  number  had  increased 
regularly  and  steadily,  and  that  the  following  estimate  must  ap 
proach  tolerably  near  the  truth  : — 

Say  1702,  36,000;  increase  in  29  years,  26,500 
1734,77,000;       "        "32     "      41,000 
In  1775,  the  total  number  of  slaves  and  other  coloured  persons  on 

the  island,  was 194,614 

And  if  we  now  deduct  from  this  the  number  in  1702,  say    36,000 

We  obtain,  as  the  increase  of  73  years  158,614 

In  that  period  the  importations  amounted  to 497,736 

And  the  exportations  to 137,114 

Leaving,  as  retained  in  the  island 360,622| 


*  Edwards'  West  Indies,  vol.  i.  p.  255. 

f  Macpherson's  Annals  of  Comment,  vol.  iii.  575. 


DOMESTIC  AND   FOREIGN. 

or  about  two  and  two-fifths  persons  for  one  that  then  remained 
alive. 

From  1783  to  1787,  the  number  imported  was  47,485,  and  the 
number  exported  14,541;*  showing  an  increase  in  five  years  of 
nearly  33,000,  or  6,600  per  annum ;  and  by  a  report  of  the  In 
spector-General,  it  was  shown  that  the  number  retained  from  1778 
to  1787,  averaged  5345  per  annum.  Taking  the  thirteen  years, 
1775-1787,  at  that  rate,  we  obtain  nearly 70,000 

From  1789  to  1791,  the  excess  of  import  was  32,289, 
or  10,763  per  annum  ^  and  if  we  take  the  four  years, 
1788-1791,  at  the  same  rate,  we  obtain,  as  the  total 
number  retained  in  that  period 43,000 

113,000 


In  1791,  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Assembly  made  a  report 
on  the  number  of  the  slaves,  by  which  it  was  made  to  be  250,000  j 
and  if  to  this  be  added  the  free  negroes,  amounting  to  10,000,  we 
obtain,  as  the  total  number,  260,000, — showing  an  increase,  in 
fifteen  years,  of  65,386 — or  nearly  48,000  less  than  the  number 
that  had  been  imported. 

We  have  now  ascertained  an  import,  in  89  years,  of  473,000, 
with  an  increase  of  numbers  amounting  to  only  224,000;  thus 
establishing  the  fact  that  more  than  half  of  the  whole  import  had 
perished  under  the  treatment  to  which  they  had  been  subjected. 
Why  it  had  been  so  may  be  gathered  from  the  following  extract,  by 
which  it  is  shown  that  the  system  there  and  then  pursued  corre 
sponds  nearly  with  that  of  Cuba  at  the  present  time. 

"  The  advocates  of  the  slave  trade  insisted  that  it  was  impossible 
to  keep  up  the  stock  of  negroes,  without  continual  importations  from 
Africa.  It  is,  indeed,  very  evident,  that  as  long  as  importation  is 
continued,  and  two-thirds  of  the  slaves  imported  are  men,  the  succeed 
ing  generation,  in  the  most  favourable  circumstances,  cannot  be  more 
numerous  than  if  there  had  been  only  half  as  many  men  ;  or,  in  other 
words,  at  least  half  the  men  may  be  said,  with  respect  to  population, 
to  die  without  posterity." — Macpherson,  vol.  iv.  148. 

In  1792,  a  committee  of  the  Jamaica  House  of  Assembly  r«> 
*  Macpherson's  Annals  of  Commerce,  vol.  iv.  155. 


10 

ported  that  "the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade"  must  be  followed 
by  the  "  total  ruin  and  depopulation  of  the  island."  "  Suppose," 
said  they, 

"A  planter  settling  with  a  gang  of  100  African  slaves,  all  bought 
in  the  prime  of  life.  Out  of  this  gang  he  will  be  able  at  first  to  put  to 
Work,  on  an  average,  from  80  to  90  labourers.  The  committee  will 
further  suppose  that  they  increase  in  number ;  yet,  in  the  course  of 
twenty  years,  this  gang  will  be  so  far  reduced,  in  point  of  strength, 
that  he  will  not  be  able  to  work  more  than  30  to  40.  It  will  therefore 
require  a  supply  of  50  new  negroes  to  keep  up  his  estate,  and  that  not 
owing  to  cruelty,  or  want  of  good  management  on  his  part ;  on  the 
contrary,  the  more  humane  he  is,  the  greater  the  number  of  old  people 
and  young  he  will  have  on  his  estate." — Macpherson,  iv.  256. 

In  reference  to  this  extraordinary  reasoning,  Macpherson  says, 
very  correctly — 

"  With  submission,  it  may  be  asked  if  people  become  superannuated 
in  twenty  years  after  being  in  the  prime  of  life;  and  if  the  children  of 
all  these  superannuated  people  are  in  a  state  of  infancy  ?  If  one-half  of 
these  slaves  are  women,  (as  they  ought  to  be,  if  the  planter  looks  to 
futurity,)  will  not  those  fifty  women,  in  twenty  years,  have,  besides 
younger  children,  at  least  one  hundred  grown  up  to  young  men  and 
women,  capable  of  partaking  the  labour  of  their  parents,  and  replac 
ing  the  loss  by  superannuation  or  death, — as  has  been  the  case  with  the 
working  people  in  all  other  parts  of  the  world,  from  the  creation  to 
this  day?" 

To  this  question  there  can  be  but  one  reply :  Man  has  always 
increased  in  numbers  where  he  has  been  well  fed,  well  clothed,  and 
reasonably  worked ;  and  wherever  his  numbers  have  decreased,  it 
has  been  because  of  a  deficiency  of  food  and  clothing  and  an  excess 
of  work. 

It  was  at  this  period  that  the  Maroon  war  was  again  in  full 
activity,  and  so  continued  until  1796,  when  it  was  terminated  by 
the  employment  of  bloodhounds  to  track  the  fugitives,  who  finally 
surrendered,  and  were  transported  to  Lower  Canada,  whence  they 
were  soon  after  sent  to  Sierra  Leone. 

From  1792  to  1799,  the  net  import  was  74,741;  and  if  it  con 
tinued  at  the  same  rate  to  1808,  the  date  of  the  abolition  of  the 
trade,  the  number  imported  in  eighteen  years  would  be  nearly 
150,000;  and  yet  the  number  of  slaves  increased,  in  that  period, 
from  250,000  to  only  323,827 — being  an  annual  average  increase 
of  about  4500,  and  exhibiting  a  loss  of  fifty  per  cent. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  11 

In  the  thirty-four  years,  1775-1808,  the  number  of  negroes 
added  to  the  population  of  the  island,  by  importation,  would  seem 
to  have  been  more  than  260,000,  and  within  about  50,000  of  the 
number  that,  a  quarter  of  a  century  later,  was  emancipated. 

In  1817,  nine  years  after  importation  had  been  declared  illegal, 
the  number  is  stated*  at  346,150 ;  from  which  it  would  appear 
that  the  trade  must  have  been  in  some  measure  continued  up  to 
that  date,  as  there  is  no  instance  on  record  of  any  natural  increase 
in  any  of  the  islands,  under  any  circumstances.  It  is,  indeed, 
quite  clear  that  no  such  increase  has  taken  place ;  for  had  it  once 
commenced,  it  would  have  continued,  which  was  not  the  case,  as 
will  be  seen  by  the  following  figures  : — 

In  1817,  the  number  was,  as  we  see  346,150.  In  1820,  it  was 
only  342,382  j  and  if  to  this  we  add  the  manumissions  for  the 
same  period,  (1016,)  we  have  a  net  loss  of  2752. 

In  1826,  they  had  declined  in  numbers  to  331,119,  to  which 
must  be  added  1848  manumissions — showing  a  loss,  in  six  years, 
of  9415,  or  nearly  three  per  cent. 

The  number  shown  by  the  last  registration,  1833,  was  only 
311,692;  and  if  to  this  we  add  2000  that  had  been  manumitted, 
we  shall  have  a  loss,  in  seven  years,  of  19,275,  or  more  than  five 
per  cent.  In  sixteen  years,  there  had  been  a  diminution  of  ten  per 
cent.,  one-fifth  of  which  may  be  attributed  to  manumission ;  and 
thus  is  it  clearly  established  that  in  1830,  as  in  1792,  a  large  an 
nual  importation  would  have  been  required,  merely  to  maintain  the 
number  of  the  population. 

That  the  condition  of  the  negroes  was  in  a  course  of  deteriora-  rv 
tion  in  this  period,  is  clearly  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  proportion 
of  births  to  deaths  was  in  a  steady  course  of  diminution,  as  is  here 
shown  : — 

From  1817  to  1820,  were  registered  25,104  deaths,  24,348  births. 
"     1823  to  1826,     "         «         25,171      «      23,026     " 
"     1826  to  1829,     "         "         25,137      "      21,728     " 

The  destruction  of  life  was  thus  proceeding  with  constantly  accele- 

*  Martin's  Colonial  Library,  West  Indies,  vol.  i.  90. 


12  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

rating  rapidity;  and  a  continuance  of  the  system,  as  it  then  existed, 
must  have  witnessed  the  total  annihilation  of  the  negro  race  within 
half  a  century. 

Viewing  these  facts,  not  a  doubt  can,  I  think,  be  enter 
tained  that  the  number  of  negroes  imported  into  the  island  and 
retained  for  its  consumption  was  more  than  double  the  number 
that  existed  there  in  1817,  and  could  scarcely  have  been  less  than 
750,000,  and  certainly,  at  the  most  moderate  estimate,  not  less  than 
700,000.  If  to  these  we  were  to  add  the  children  that  must 
have  been  born  on  the  island  in  the  long  period  of  178  years,  and 
then  to  reflect  that  all  who  remained  for  emancipation  amounted  to 
only  311,000,  we  should  find  ourselves  forced  to  the  conclusion  that 
slavery  was  here  attended  with  a  destruction  of  life  almost  without 
a  parallel  in  the  history  of  any  civilized  nation. 

With  a  view  to  show  that  Jamaica  cannot  be  regarded  as  an  un 
favourable  specimen  of  the  system,  the  movement  of  population  in 
other  colonies  will  now  be  given. 

In  1764,  the  slave  population  of  ST.  VINCENT'S  was  7414.  In 
1787,  twenty-three  years  after,  it  was  11,853,  having  increased 
4439 ;  whereas,  in  four  only  of  those  years,  1784-87,  the  net 
import  of  negroes  had  been  no  less  than  6100.*  In  1805,  the 
number  was  16,500,  the  increase  having  been  4647;  whereas  the 
net  import  in  three  only,  out  of  eighteen  years,  had  been  1937. 
What  was  the  cause  of  this,  may  be  seen  by  the  comparative  view 
of  deaths,  and  their  compensation  by  births,  at  a  later  period : — 

Year  1822 4205  deaths,  2656  births. 

«    1825 2106      «       1852      " 

"    1828 2020      "       1829      " 

«     1831 2266      "       1781      « 

The  births,  it  will  be  observed,  steadily  diminished  in  number. 

At  the  peace  of  1763,  DOMINICA  contained  6000  slaves.  The 
net  amount  of  importation,  in  four  years,  1784  to  1787,  was 
23,221  ;*  and  yet  the  total  population  in  1788  was  but  14,967 ! 
Here  we  have  a  waste  of  life  so  far  exceeding  that  of  Jamaica  that 

*  Macpherson,  vol.  iv.  155. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  13 

we  might  almost  feel  ourselves  called  upon  to  allow  five  imported  for 
every  one  remaining  on  the  island.  Forty-four  years  afterwards, 
in  1832,  the  slave  emancipation  returns  gave  14,834  as  remaining 
out  of  the  vast  number  that  had  been  imported.  The  losses  by 
death  and  the  gains  by  births,  for  a  part  of  the  period  preceding 
emancipation,  are  thus  given  : — 

1817  to  1820 1748  deaths,  1433  births. 

1820  to  1823 1527      "       1491      " 

1823  to  1826 1493      «       1309      « 

If  we  look  to  BRITISH  GUIANA,  we  find  the  same  results.* 
In  1820,  Demerara  and  Essequibo  had  a  slave  population  of  77,376 

By  1826,  it  had  fallen  to  .- 71,382 

And  by  1832,  it  had  still  further  fallen  to 65,517 

The  deaths  and  births  of  this  colony  exhibit  a  waste  of  life  that 
would  be  deemed  almost  incredible,  had  not  the  facts  been  carefully 
registered  at  the  moment : — 

1817  to  1820 7140  deaths,  4868  births. 

1820  to  1823 f 7188      «       4512      « 

1823  to  1826 7634      «       4494      " 

1826  to  1829 5731      "       4684     « 

1829  to  1832 7016      «       4086      « 

We  have  here  a  decrease,  in  fifteen  years,  of  fifteen  per  cent.,  or 
12,000  out  of  77,000.  Each  successive  period,  with  a  single  ex 
ception,  presents  a  diminished  number  of  births,  while  the  average 
of  deaths  in  the  last  three  periods  is  almost  the  same  as  in  the 
first  one. 

BARBADOES  had,  in  1753,  a  slave  population  of  69,870.  In 
1817,  sixty-four  years  after,  although  importation  appears  to  have 
been  regularly  continued  on  a  small  scale,  it  amounted  to  only 
77,493.  In  this  case,  the  slaves  appear  to  have  been  better  treated 
than  elsewhere,  as  here  we  find,  in  the  later  years,  the  births  to 
have  exceeded  the  deaths — the  former  having  been,  from  1826  to 


*  Montgomery's  West  Indies,  vol.  ii.  114. 
2 


14  THE   SLiYE   TRADE. 

1829,  9250,  while  the  latter  were  4814.    There  were  here,  also. 

In  TBTMDAJX  out  of  a  total  slave  population  of  23.537.  the 
deaths,  in  twelre  years,  were  no  less  than  8774,  while  the  births 

~-.~-     !  L  .  •     ' 

GKKSADA  surrendered  to  the  British  forces  in  1762.     - 
years  sftnr,  in  1769,  there  am  35,000  negroes  on  the  island.    In 
1778,  notwithstanding  the  importation,  they  appear  to  hare  been 
reduced  to  25,021. 

In  the  four  years  from  1784  to  1787,  and  the  three  from  1789 
to  1791,  (the  only  ones  for  which  I  can  find  an  account,)  the  num 
ber  imported  and  retained  for  consumption  on  the  island  amounted 
to  no  less  than  16,222  ;*  and  yet  Ike  total  number  finally  emanci 
pated  was  but  23,471.  The  destruction  of  life  appears  here  to 
Lave  been  eaormosB;  and  that  it  continued  long  after  tfc»  aboli 
tion  of  the  dare  taitj  »  iSMmjsj  ty  tfc»  ftiUmiag  comparison  of 

.-.-  -:    .    --    — 

1817 451  births,    902  deaths. 

1818.... 657f    "      1070     " 

The  total  births  from  1817  to  1831,  were  10.144  in  number,  while 
the  deaths  were  12.764 — showing  a  loss  of  about  ten  per  cent. 

The  number  of  glares  emancipated  in  1834,  in  all  the  British 
possessions,  was  780^93;  and  the  net  kw  in  the  fntwm  fere 
jcanlmi  bscsi  38^11,  oroiSMSf  erne  per  <x*t  per  a****. 

ricwiag  the  fact«  that  hare  been  placed  before  the  reader,  we  can 
scarcely  en*  much  in  assuming  that  the  number  imported  and  re- 

Tlris  would  gire  sfcos*  two  and  a  half  imported  for  one  that  waa 
rmMripitifr;  and  there  is  some  reason  to  think  Aat  it  might  be 
placed  a»  high  as  three  for  one,  •hifh  mnaiif  give  a  total  import 
of  almost  two  motions. 

While  thus  exhibiting  the  terrific  waste  of  life  in  the  British  colo- 


.  155,  228. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  15 

vies,  it  is  not  intended  either  to  assert  or  to  deny  any  voluntary  seve 
rity  on  the  part  of  the  landholders.  They  were,  themselves,  as  will 
hereafter  be  shown,  to  a  great  extent,  the  slaves  of  circumstances 
over  which  they  had  no  control ;  and  it  cannot  be  doubted  that 
much,  very  much,  of  the  responsibility,  must  rest  on  other  shoulders. 


CHAPTER  III. 

OF    SLAVERY   IN   THE   UNITED    STATES. 

IN  the  North  American  provinces,  now  the  United  States,  negro 
slavery  existed  from  a  very  early  period,  but  on  a  very  limited 
scale,  as  the  demand  for  slaves  was  mainly  supplied  from  England. 
The  exports  of  the  colonies  were  bulky,  and  the  whites  could  be 
imported  as  return  cargo }  whereas  the  blacks  would  have  re 
quired  a  voyage  to  the  coast  of  Africa,  with  which  little  trade  was 
maintained.  The  export  from  England  ceased  after  the  revolution 
of  1688,  and  thenceforward  negro  slaves  were  somewhat  more 
freely  imported  j  yet  the  trade  appears  to  have  been  so  small  as 
scarcely  to  have  attracted  notice.  The  only  information  on  the 
subject  furnished  by  Macpherson  in  his  Annals  of  Commerce  is 
that,  in  the  eight  months  ending  July  12,  1753,  the  negroes  im 
ported  into  Charleston,  S.  C.,  were  511  in  number;  and  that  iu 
the  year  1765-66,  the  value  of  negroes  imported  from  Africa  into 
Georgia  was  £14,820— and  this,  if  they  be  valued  at  only  £10 
each,  would  give  only  1482.  From  1783  to  1787,  the  number  ex 
ported  from  all  the  West  India  Islands  to  this  country  was  1392* 
— being  an  average  of  less  than  300  per  annum ;  and  there  is  little 
reason  for  believing  that  this  number  was  increased  by  any  import 
direct  from  Africa.  The  British  West  Indies  were  then  the  entre 
pot  of  the  trade,f  and  thence  they  were  supplied  to  the  other  islands 

*  Macph'erson,  vol.  iv.  155. 

f  The  export  to  the  foreign  West  Indies,  from  1783  to  1787,  is  given  by  Mac- 
pherson  at  nearly  20,000. 


16 

and  the  settlements  on  the  Main ;  and  had  the  demand  for  this 
country  been  considerable,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  a  larger  por 
tion  of  the  thousands  then  annually  exported  would  have  been  sent 
in  this  direction. 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  only  mode  of  arriving  at  the 
history  of  slavery  prior  to  the  first  census,  in  1790,  appears  to  be 
to  commence  at  that  date  and  go  forward,  and  afterwards  employ 
the  information  so  obtained  in  endeavouring  to  elucidate  the  opera 
tions  of  the  previous  period.  The  number  of  negroes,  free  and 

enslaved,  at  that  date,  was 757,263 

And  at  the  second  census,  in  1801,  it  was 1,001,436 

showing  an  increase  of  almost  thirty-three  per  cent.  How  much 
of  this,  however,  was  due  to  importation,  we  have  now  to  inquire. 
The  only  two  States  that  then  tolerated  the  import  of  slaves  were 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  the  joint  black  population  of  which,  in 

1790,  was 136,358 

whereas,  in  1800,  it  had  risen  to 205,555 

Increase 69,197 

In  the  same  period  the  white  population  increased  104,762,  re 
quiring  an  immigration  from  the  Northern  slave  States  to  the  extent 
of  not  less  than  45,000,  even  allowing  more  than  thirty  per  cent, 
for  the  natural  increase  by  births.  Admitting,  now,  that  for  every 
family  of  five  free  persons  there  came  one  slave,  this  would  ac 
count  for 9,000 

And  if  we  take  the  natural  increase  of  the  slave  population 

at  only  twenty-five  per  cent,  we  have  further 34,000 

Making  a  total  from  domestic  sources  of 43,000 

And  leaving,  for  the  import  from  abroad  26,197 

Deducting  these  from  the  total  number  added,  we  obtain,  for  the 
natural  increase,  about  29  J  per  cent. 

Macpherson,  treating  of  this  period,  says — 

"  That  importation  is  not  necessary  for  keeping  up  the  stock  is 
proved  by  the  example  of  North  America — a  country  less  congenial  to 
the  constitution  of  the  negro  than  the  West  Indies — where,  notwith 
standing  the  destruction  and  desertion  of  the  slaves  occasioned  by  the 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  17 

war,  the  number  of  negroes,  though  perhaps  not  of  slaves,  has  greatly 
increased — because,  since  the  war  they  have  imported  very  few,  and  of  late 
years  none  at  all,  except  in  the  Southern  States." — Annals,  vol.  iv.  150. 

The  number  of  vessels  employed  in  the  slave  4rade,  in  1795,  is 
stated  to  have  been  twenty,  all  of  them  small;  and  the  number  of 
slaves  to  be  carried  was  limited  to  one  for  each  ton  of  their  capacity. 
From  1800  to  1810,  the  increase  was  378,374,  of  which  nearly 
30,000  were  found  in  Louisiana  at  her  incorporation  into  the  Union, 
leaving  about  350,000  to  come  from  other  sources;  being  an  in 
crease  of  35  per  cent.  In  this  period  the  increase  of  Georgia  and 
South  Carolina,  the  two  importing  States,  was  only  96,000,  while 
that  of  the  white  population  was  129,073,  carrying  with  them  per 
haps  25,000.  If  to  this  be  added  the  natural  increase  at  the  rate 
of  25  per  cent.,  we  obtain  about  75,000,  leaving  only  21,000  for 
importation.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  it  was  somewhat  larger, 
and  that  it  might  be  safe  to  estimate  it  at  the  same  amount  as  in 
the  previous  period,  making  a  total  of  about  52,000  in  the  twenty 
years.  Deducting  26,000  from  the  350,000,  w£  obtain  324,000  as 
the  addition  from  domestic  sources,  which  would  be  about  32  per 
cent,  on  the  population  of  1800.  This  may  be  too  high;  and  yet 
the  growth  of  the  following  decennial  period — one  of  war  and  great 
commercial  and  agricultural  distress — was  almost  thirty  per  cent. 
In  1810,  the  number  had  been  1,379,800. 

In  1820  it  was  1,779,885;  increase  30    per  cent.  , 
"  1830      «     2,328,642;        "       30-8  "      « 
"  1840      "      2,873,703;        "       24     "      "* 
«  1850      «     3,591,000;        «       25     «      «* 

Having  thus  ascertained,  as  far  as  possible,  the  ratio  of  increase 
subsequent  to  the  first  census,  we  may  now  proceed  to  an  examina 
tion  of  the  course  of  affairs  in  the  period  which  had  preceded  it. 

In  1714,  the  number  of  blacks  was  58,850,  and  they  were  dis 
persed  throughout  the  provinces  from  New  Hampshire  to  Carolina, 
engaged,  to  a  large  extent,  in  labours  similar  to  those  in  which 
were  engaged  the  whites  by  whom  they  were  owned.  One-half  of 


*  The  causes  of  this  diminution  will  be  exhibited  in  a  future  chapter. 

2* 


18  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

them  may  have  been  imported.  Starting  from  this  point,  and 
taking  the  natural  increase  of  each  decennial  period  at  25  per  cent., 
as  shown  to  have  since  been  the  case,  we  should  obtain,  for  1750, 
about  ISO, 000.  The  actual  quantity  was  220,000;  and  the  differ 
ence,  90,000,  may  be  set  down  to  importation.  Adding,  now,  25 
per  cent,  to  220,000,  we  obtain,  for  1760,  275,000;  whereas  the 
actual  number  was  310,000,  which  would  give  35,000  for  importa 
tion.  Pursuing  the  same  course  with  the  following  periods,  we 
obtain  the  following  results  : — 

Years.  Actual  number.    Natural  increase.    Actual  increase.    Importation. 

1760 310,000 77,500 152,000 74,500 

1770 462,000 115,500 120,000  )      3 

1780 582,000 140,500 170,000  )  " 

1790 752,000,  number  given  by  first  census. 

For  a  large  portion  of  the  period  from  1770  to  1790,  there 
must  have  been  a  very  small  importation ;  for  during  nearly  half 
the  time  the  trad*  with  foreign  countries  was  almost  altogether 
suspended  by  the  war  of  the  revolution. 

If  we  add  together  the  quantities  thus  obtained,  we  shall  obtain 
a  tolerable  approximation  to  the  number  of  slaves  imported  into 
the  territory  now  constituting  the  Union,  as  follows : — 

.  Prior  to  1714 30,000 

1715  to  1750 90,000 

1751  to  1760 35,000 

1761  to  1770 74,500 

1771  to  1T90 34,000 

And  if  we  now  estimate  the  import  subsequent  to  1790 
at  even.... 70,000 

We  obtain  as  the  total  number 333,500 


The  number  now  in  the  Union  exceeds  3,800,000 ;  and  even  if 
we  estimate  the  import  as  high  as  380,000,  we  then  have  more 
than  ten  for  one ;  whereas  in  the  British  Islands  we  can  find  not 
more  than  two  for  five,  and  perhaps  even  not  more  than  one  for 
three.  Had  the  slaves  of  the  latter  been  as  well  fed,  clothed. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  19 

lodged,  and  otherwise  cared  for,  as  were  those  of  these  provinces 
and  States,  their  numbers  would  have  reached  seventeen  or  twenty 
millions.  Had  the  blacks  among  the  people  of  these  States  ex 
perienced  the  same  treatment  as  did  their  fellows  of  the  islands, 
we  should  now  have  among  us  less  than  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  slaves. 

The  prices  paid  by  the  British  Government  averaged  £25  per 
head.  Had  the  number  in  the  colonies  been  allowed  to  increase 
as  they  increased  here,  it  would  have  required,  even  at  that  price, 
the  enormous  sum  of £500,000,000 

Had  the  numbers  in  this  country  been  reduced  by 
the  same  process  there  practised,  emancipation  could 
now  be  carried  out  at  cost  of  less  than £4,000,000 

To  emancipate  them  now,  paying  for  them  at  the 

same  rate,  would  require  nearly  £100,000,000 

or  almost  five  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  The  same  course,  how 
ever,  that  has  increased  their  numbers,  has  largely  increased  their 
value  to  the  owners  and  to  themselves.  Men,  when  well  fed, 
well  clothed,  well  lodged,  and  otherwise  well  cared  for,  always  in 
crease  rapidly  in  numbers,  and  in  such  cases  labour  always  increases 
rapidly  in  value ;  and  hence  it  is  that  the  average  price  of  the  negro 
slave  of  this  country  is  probably  four  times  greater  than  that  which 
the  planters  of  the  West  Indies  were  compelled  to  receive.  Such 
being  the  case,  it  would  follow  that  to  pay  for  their  full  value  would 
require  probably  four  hundred  millions  of  pounds  sterling,  or  nearly 
two  thousand  millions  of  dollars. 

It  will  now  be  seen  that  the  course  of  things  in  the  two  coun 
tries  has  been  entirely  different.  In  the  islands  the  slave  trade  had 
been  cherished  as  a  source  of  profit.  Here,  it  had  been  made  the 
subject  of  repeated  protests  on  the  part  of  several  of  the  provinces, 
and  had  been  by  all  but  two  prohibited  at  the  earliest  moment  at 
which  they  possessed  the  power  so  to  do.  In  the  islands  it  was 
held  to  be  cheaper  to  buy  slaves  than  to  raise  them,  and  the  sexes 
were  out  of  all  proportion  to  each  other.  Here,  importation  was 
small,  and  almost  the  whole  increase,  large  as  it  has  been,  has  re 
sulted  from  the  excess  of  births  over  deaths.  In  the  islands,  the 


20  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

slave  was  generally  a  barbarian,  speaking  an  unknown,  tongue,  and 
working  with  men  like  himself,  in  gangs,  with  scarcely  a  chance 
for  improvement.  Here,  he  was  generally  a  being  born  on  the  soil, 
speaking  the  same  language  with  his  owner,  and  often  working  in 
the  field  with  him,  with  many  advantages  for  the  development  of  his 
faculties.  In  the  islands,  the  land-owners  clung  to  slavery  as  the 
sheet-anchor  of  their  hopes.  Here,  on  the  contrary,  slavery  had 
gradually  been  abolished  in  all  the  States  north  of  Mason  &  Dixon's 
line,  and  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  Kentucky  were  all, 
at  the  date  of  emancipation  in  the  islands,  preparing  for  the  early 
adoption  of  measures  looking  to  its  entire  abolition.  In  the 
islands,  the  connection  with  Africa  had  been  cherished  as  a  means 
of  obtaining  cheap  labour,  to  be  obtained  by  fomenting  discord 
among  the  natives.  Here,  on  the  contrary,  had  originated  a  grand 
scheme  for  carrying  civilization  into  the  heart  of  Africa  by  means 
of  the  gradual  transplantation  of  some  of  the  already  civilized  blacks. 
In  the  islands,  it  has  been  deemed  desirable  to  carry  out  "  the 
European  policy,"  of  preventing  the  Africans  "from  arriving  at 
perfection"  in  the  art  of  preparing  their  cotton,  sugar,  indigo,  or 
other  articles,  "  from  a  fear  of  interfering  with  established  branches 
of  commerce  elsewhere."*  Here,  on  the  contrary,  efforts  had  been 
made  for  disseminating  among  them  the  knowledge  required  for  per 
fecting  themselves  in  the  modes  of  preparation  and  manufacture.  In 
the  islands,  every  thing  looked  toward  the  permanency  of  slavery. 
Here,  every  thing  looked  toward  the  gradual  and  gentle  civiliza 
tion  and  emancipation  of  the  negro  throughout  the  world.  In  the 
islands,  however,  by  a  prompt  measure  forced  on  the  people  by  a 
distant  government,  slavery  was  abolished,  and  the  planters,  or  their 
representatives  in  England,  received  twenty  millions  of  pounds  ster 
ling  as  compensation  in  full  for  the  services  of  the  few  who  remained 
in  existence  out  of  the  large  number  that  had  been  imported. 
Here,  the  planters  are  now  urged  to  adopt  for  themselves  measures 
of  a  similar  kind.  The  whole  course  of  proceeding  in  the  two 
countries  in  reference  to  the  negro  having  been  so  widely  different, 

*  Macpherson,  vol.  iv.  144. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  21 

there  are,  however,  difficulties  in  the  way  that  seem  to  be  almost 
insuperable.  The  power  to  purchase  the  slaves  of  the  British 
colonies  was  a  consequence  of  the  fact  that  their  numbers  had  not 
been  permitted  to  increase.  The  difficulty  of  purchasing  them  here 
is  great,  because  of  their  having  been  well  fed,  well  clothed,  and 
otherwise  well  provided  for,  and  having  therefore  increased  so 
rapidly.  If,  nevertheless,  it  can  be  shown  that  by  abandoning  the 
system  under  which  the  negro  race  has  steadily  increased  in  num 
bers  and  advanced  towards  civilization,  and  adopting  that  of  a  nation 
under  whose  rule  there  has  been  a  steady  decline  of  numbers,  and 
but  little,  if  any,  tendency  toward  civilization,  we  shall  benefit  the 
race,  it  will  become  our  duty  to  make  the  effort,  however  great 
may  be  the  cost.  With  a  view  to  ascertain  how  far  duty  may  be 
regarded  as  calling  upon  us  now  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of 
that  nation,  it  is  proposed  to  examine  into  the  working  of  the  act 
by  which  the  whole  negro  population  of  the  British  colonies  was, 
almost  at  once  and  without  preparation,  invested  with  the  right  to 
determine  for  whom  they  would  work  and  what  should  be  their 
wages — or  were,  in  other  words,  declared  to  be  free. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

OF   EMANCIPATION   IN   THE   BRITISH   COLONIES. 

THE  small  number  of  slaves  held  in  the  British  colonies  and 
their  small  value  having  enabled  the  people  of  England  to  dis 
charge  them  from  all  compulsory  labour,  on  payment  to  their  own 
ers  of  a  portion  of  that  small  value,  the  question  now  arises — 
"  Has  that  measure  tended  to  the  advancement  of  the  negro  in 
numbers,  wealth,  happiness,  or  civilization  ?" 

Reasoning  a,  priori,  we  should  be  led  to  doubt  if  such  could  bt, 
its  results.  The  savage  is  indolent;  he  labours  only  when  com 
pelled  to  do  so.  He  may  shoot  the  deer,  but  he  leaves  to  his  squaw 
the  labour  of  carrying  it  home  and  preparing  it  for  his  supper. 
Look  at  him  where  we  may,  we  find  him  idle  and  improvident.  If 


22  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

ho  kill  more  game  than  is  required  for  the  day,  it  is  allowed  to 
Fpoil.  If  he  obtain  money,  it  is  wasted  in  the  purchase  of  rum, 
He  is  a  gambler,  and  always  ready  to  stake  whatever  he  possesses, 
even  to  life  itself,  on  the  chances  of  the  die.  Not  only  does  he 
not  accumulate  any  thing  for  the  future,  but  he  wastes  and  destroys 
around  him  ;  and  therefore  it  is  that  we  find  him  steadily  declining 
in  numbers  and  in  condition. 

That  the  negroes  of  the  islands  and  the  Main  had  been  kept 
nearly  in  a  state  of  barbarism,  was  a  necessary  consequence  of  the 
fact  that  constant  importation  of  barbarians  had  been  required  to 
replace  those  who  died  of  exhaustion  from  excess  of  labour,  or  from 
poverty  of  food,  clothing,  and  lodging.  Their  condition  generally 
had  been  similar  to  that  now  observed  on  many  of  the  estates  in 
Cuba.  Five  men  to  one  woman  is  stated  by  Macpherson  to  have 
been  the  relation  of  the  numbers  of  the  sexes  on  many  of  the 
estates ;  and  under  such  circumstances  any  advance  toward  civiliza 
tion  must  have  been  impossible.  Up  to  the  day  of  emancipation 
these  men  had  been  forced  to  work,  and  the  great  object  of  desire 
had  been  exemption  from  labour.  Under  such  circumstances,  it 
was  greatly  to  be  feared  that  if  suddenly  emancipated  from  con 
trol,  they  would,  like  children,  be  disposed  to  make  a  little  labour 
answer  their  purpose,  giving  the  rest  of  their  time  to  idleness  \  and 
the  direct  effect  and  intent  of  the  measure  adopted  was  to  give 
them  the  power  to  determine  for  themselves  for  whom  they  would 
work,  and  how  much  work  they  would  agree  to  give  for  any  given 
amount  of  compensation.  The  larger  the  wages  for  a  day  the 
more  days  they  could  spend  in  idleness,  and  they  could  not  but 
know  that  the  planters  were  entirely  in  their  power.  If  they  idled 
for  a  week,  their  late  master  lost  his  crop.  If  they  worked  six 
hours  out  of  twenty-four,  not  only  did  capital  employed  in  the 
steam-engine  fail  to  pay  interest,  but  the  planter  lost  his  market 
for  his  sugar.  Emancipation,  under  such  circumstances,  changed 
them  at  once  from  the  condition  of  absolute  slaves  to  absolute 
masters  of  the  fortunes  of  those  whom  they  had  lately  served. 
They  could  live  on  the  produce  of  little  labour,  and  the  less  they 
were  disposed  to  work  the  greater  must  become  the  necessities  of 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN  23 

the  planters,  and  the  greater  their  own  power  to  determine  the  con 
ditions  upon  which  they  would  work. 

The  harmony  of  the  universe  is  the  result  of  a  contest  between 
equal  and  opposing  powers.  The  earth  is  attracted  to  the  sun  and 
from  the  sun  ;  and  were  either  of  these  forces  to  be  diminished  or  de 
stroyed,  chaos  would  be  the  inevitable  result.  So  is  it  everywhere  on 
the  earth.  The  apple  falls  toward  the  centre  of  the  earth,  but  in  its 
passage  it  encounters  resistance;  and  the  harmony  of  every  thing 
we  see  around  us  is  dependent  on  the  equal  balance  of  these  op 
posing  forces.  So  is  it  among  men.  The  man  who  has  food  to 
sell  wishes  to  have  a  high  price  for  it,  whereas  he  who  needs  to 
buy  desires  to  have  it  cheaply;  and  the  selling  price  depends  on  the 
relation  between  the  necessity  to  buy  on  one  hand,  or  to  sell  on  the 
other.  Diminish  suddenly  and  largely  the  competition  for  the  pur 
chase  of  food,  and  the  farmer  becomes  the  prey  of  the  mechanic. 
Increase  it  suddenly  and  largely,  and  the  mechanic  becomes  the  prey 
of  the  farmer;  whereas  a  gradual  and  gentle  increase  in  the  demand 
for  food  is  accompanied  by  a  similar  increase  in  the  demand  for  the 
products  of  the  loom  and  the  anvil,  and  both  farmer  and  mechanic 
prosper  together,  because  the  competition  for  purchase  and  the  com 
petition  for  sale  grow  together  and  balance  each  other.  So,  too,  with 
labour.  Wages  are  dependent  upon  the  relation  between  the  num 
ber  of  those  who  desire  to  buy  and  to  sell  labour.  Diminish  sud 
denly  the  number  of  those  who  desire  to  sell  it,  and  the  farmer  may 
be  ruined.  Diminish  suddenly  the  number  of  those  who  desire  to 
buy  it,  and  the  labourer  may  become  the  slave  of  the  farmer. 

For  almost  two  centuries,  men  possessed  of  capital  and  desirous 
to  purchase  labour  had  been  induced  to  transfer  it  to  the  colonies, 
and  the  government  secured  to  them  the  right  to  obtain  labourers 
on  certain  specified  terms — such  terms  as  made  the  labourer  a  mere 
instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  capitalist,  and  prevented  him  from 
obtaining  any  of  those  habits  or  feelings  calculated  to  inspire  him 
with  a  love  for  labour.  At  once,  all  control  over  him  was  with 
drawn,  and  the  seller  of  labour  was  converted  into  the  master  of 
him  who  was  thus,  by  the  action  of  the  government,  placed  in  such 
a  situation  that  he  must  buy  it  or  be  ruined.  Here  was  a  disturb- 


24 

ance  of  the  order  of  things  that  had  existed,  almost  as  great  as  that 
which  occurs  when  the  powerful  steam,  bursting  the  boiler  in  which 
it  is  enclosed,  ceases  to  be  the  servant  and  becomes  the  master  of 
man }  and  it  would  have  required  but  little  foresight  to  enable 
those  who  had  the  government  of  this  machine  to  see  that  it  must 
prove  almost  as  ruinous. 

How  it  operated  in  Southern  Africa,  where  the  slave  was  most 
at  home,  is  shown  by  the  following  extracts  from  the  work  of  a 
recent  traveller  and  settler  in  that  colony: — * 

"  The  chain  was  broken,  and  the  people  of  England  hurraed  to  their 
heart's  content.  And  the  slave  !  What,  in  the  meanwhile,  became  of 
him  ?  If  he  was  young  and  vicious,  away  he  went — he  was  his  own 
master.  He  was  at  liberty  to  walk  to  and  fro  upon  the  earth,  '  seeking 
whom  he  might  devour/  He  was  free :  he  had  the  world  before  him 
where  to  choose,  though,  squatted  beside  the  Kaffir's  fire,  probably 
thinking  his  meal  of  parched  corn  but  poor  stuff  after  the  palatable 
dishes  he  had  been  permitted  to  cook  for  himself  in  the  Boer's  or 
tradesman's  kitchen.  But  he  was  fain  to  like  it — he  could  get  nothing 
else — and  this  was  earned  at  the  expense  of  his  own  soul ;  for  it  was 
given  him  as  an  inducement  to  teach  the  Kaffir  the  easiest  mode  of 
plundering  his  ancient  master.  If  inclined  to  work,  he  had  no  certain 
prospect  of  employment ;  and  the  Dutch,  losing  so  much  by  the  sudden 
Emancipation  Act,  resolved  on  working  for  themselves.  So  the  virtu 
ous,  redeemed  slave,  had  too  many  temptations  to  remain  virtuous : 
lie  was  hungry — so  was  his  wife — so  were  his  children ;  and  he  must 
feed  them.  How?  No  matter." 

These  people  will  work  at  times,  but  they  must  have  wages 
that  will  enable  them  to  play  much  of  their  time. 

"  When  we  read  of  the  distress  of  our  own  country,  and  of  the 
wretched  earnings  of  our  mechanics,  we  are  disgusted  at  the  idea  of 
these  same  Fingoes  striking  work  (as  Coolies)  at  Waterloo  Bay,  being 
dissatisfied  with  the  pay  of  2s.  a  day.  As  their  services  are  necessary 
in  landing  cargo,  their  demand  of  3s.  a  day  has  been  acceded  to,  and 
they  have  consented  to  work  when  it  suits  them ! — for  they  take  occa 
sional  holidays,  for  dancing  and  eating.  At  Algoa  Bay,  the  Fingoes 
are  often  paid  Qs.  a  day  for  working  as  Coolies." 

These  men  have  all  the  habits  of  the  savage.  They  leave  to  the 
women  the  tilling  of  the  ground,  the  hoeing  of  the  corn,  the  carry 
ing  of  water,  and  all  the  heavy  work ;  and  to  the  boys  and  old 
men  the  tending  of  the  cattle,  while  they  themselves  spend  the 
year  in  hunting,  dancing,  eating,  and  robbing  their  neighbours — 

*  The  Cape  and  the  Kaffirs,  by  Harriet  Ward,  London,  1852. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  25 

except  when  occasionally  they  deem  it  expedient  to  do  a  few  days' 
work  at  such  wages  as  they  may  think  proper  to  dictate. 

How  it  has  operated  in  the  West  Indies  we  may  next  inquire, 
and  with  that  view  will  take  Jamaica,  one  of  the  oldest,  and,  until 
lately,  one  of  the  most  prosperous  of  the  colonies.  That  island 
embraces  about  four  millions  of  acres  of  land,  "of  which,"  says 
Mr  Bigelow, — 

"  There  are  not,  probably,  any  ten  lying  adjacent  to  each  other  which 
are  not  susceptible  of  the  highest  cultivation,  while  not  more  than 
500,000  acres  have  ever  been  reclaimed,  or  even  appropriated."* 

"It  is  traversed  by  over  two  hundred  streams,  forty  of  which  are 
from  twenty-five  to  one  hundred  feet  in  breadth ;  and,  it  deserves  to 
be  mentioned,  furnish  water-power  sufficient  to  manufacture  every 
thing  produced  by  the  soil,  or  consumed  by  the  inhabitants.  Far  less 
expense  than  is  usually  incurred  on  the  same  surface  in  the  United 
States  for  manure,  would  irrigate  all  the  dry  lands  of  the  island,  and 
enable  them  to  defy  the  most  protracted  droughts  by  which  it  is  ever 
visited."f 

The  productiveness  of  the  soil  is  immense.  Fruits  of  every 
variety  abound ;  vegetables  of  every  kind  for  the  table,  and  Indian 
corn,  grow  abundantly.  The  island  is  rich  in  dyestuffs,  drugs, 
and  spices  of  the  greatest  value ;  and  the  forests  furnish  the  most 
celebrated  woods  in  the  greatest  variety.  In  addition  to  this,  it 
possesses  copper-mines  inferior  to  none  in  the  world,  and  coal  will 
probably  be  mined  extensively  before  many  years.  "  Such,"  says 
Mr.  Bigelow, — 

"Are  some  of  the  natural  resources  of  this  dilapidated  and  poverty- 
stricken  country.  Capable  as  it  is  of  producing  almost  every  thing, 
and  actually  producing  nothing  which  might  not  become  a  staple  with 
a  proper  application  of  capital  and  skill,  its  inhabitants  are  miserably 
poor,  and  daily  sinking  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  utter  helplessness 
of  abject  want. 

" '  Magnas  inter  opes  inops.' 

"  Shipping  has  deserted  her  ports ;  her  magnificent  plantations  of 
sugar  and  coffee  are  running  to  weeds  ;  her  private  dwellings  are  fall 
ing  to  decay;  the  comforts  and  luxuries  which  belong  to  industrial 
prosperity  have  been  cut  off,  one  by  one,  from  her  inhabitants ;  and 
the  day,  I  think,  is  at  hand  when  there  will  be  none  left  to  represent 
the  wealth,  intelligence,  and  hospitality  for  which  the  Jamaica  planter 
was  once  so  distinguished." 

The  cause  of  all1  this,  say  the  planters,  is  that  wages  are  too  high 
*  Notes  on  Jamaica  in  1850,  p.  61.  f  Ibid.  68. 


26 

for  the  price  of  sugar.  This  Mr.  Bigelow  denies — not  conceding 
that  a  shilling  a  day  is  high  wages;  but  all  the  facts  he  adduces 
tend  to  show  that  the  labourer  gives  very  little  labour  for  the  money 
he  receives ;  and  that,  as  compared  with  the  work  done,  wages  are 
really  far  higher  than  in  any  part  of  the  Union.  Like  the  Fingo 
of  Southern  Africa,  he  can  obtain  from  a  little  patch  of  land  all 
that  is  indispensably  necessary  for  his  subsistence,  and  he  will  do 
little  more  work  than  is  needed  for  accomplishing  that  object.  The 
consequence  of  this  is  that  potatoes  sell  for  six  cents  a  pound,  eggs 
from  three  to  five  cents  each,  milk  at  eighteen  cents  a  quart,  and 
corn-meal  at  twelve  or  fourteen  dollars  a  barrel ;  and  yet  there  are 
now  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  of  these  small  proprietors,  being 
almost  one  for  every  three  people  on  the  island.  All  cultivators, 
they  yet  produce  little  to  sell,  and  the  consequence  of  this  is  seen 
in  the  fact  that  the  mass  of  the  flour,  rice,  corn,  peas,  butter,  lard, 
herrings,  &c.  needed  for  consumption  requires  to  be  imported,  as 
well  as  all  the  lumber,  although  millions  of  acres  of  timber  are  to 
be  found  among  the  unappropriated  lands  of  the  island. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  Mr.  Bigelow's  volume,  without  arriving 
at  the  conclusion  that  the  freedom  granted  to  the  negro  has  had 
little  effect  except  that  of  enabling  him  to  live  at  the  expense  of 
the  planter  so  long  as  any  thing  remained.  Sixteen  years  of  free 
dom  did  not  appear  to  its  author  to  have  "advanced  the  dignity  of 
labour  or  of  the  labouring  classes  one  particle,"  while  it  had  ruined 
the  proprietors  of  the  land ;  and  thus  great  damage  had  been  done  to 
the  one  class  without  benefit  of  any  kind  to  the  other.  From  a 
statistical  table  published  in  August  last,  it  appears,  says  the  New 
York  Herald,  that  since  1846 — 

"  The  number  of  sugar-estates  on  the  island  that  have  been  totally 
abandoned  amounts  to  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight,  and  the  number 
partially  abandoned  to  sixty-three  ;  the  value  of  which  two  hundred 
and  thirty -one  estates  was  assessed,  in  1841,  at  £1,655,140,  or  nearly 
eight  millions  and  a  half  of  dollars.  "Within  the  same  period,  two 
hundred  and  twenty-three  coffee-plantations  have  been  totally,  and 
twenty  partially  abandoned,  the  assessed  value  of  which  was,  in  1841, 
£500,000,  or  two  millions  and  a  half  of  dollars ;  and  of  cattle-pens, 
(graz ing-farms,)  one  hundred  and  twenty-two  have  been  totally,  and 
ten  partially  abandoned,  the  value  of  which  was  a  million  and  a  half 
of  dollars.  The  aggregate  value  of  these  six  hundred  and  six  estates, 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  27 

•which  have  been  thus  ruined  and  abandoned  in  the  island  of  Jamaica, 
within  the  last  seven  or  eight  ye.trs,  amounted  by  the  regular  assess 
ments,  ten  years  since,  to  the  sum  of  nearly  two  and  a  half  millions 
of  pounds  sterling,  or  twelve  and  a  half  million  of  dollars." 

As  a  necessary  consequence  of  this,  "  there  is  little  heard  of," 
gays  Dr.  King,  "but  ruin."*  "In  many  districts/'  he  adds — 

"  The  marks  of  decay  abound.  Neglected  fields,  crumbling  houses, 
fragmentary  fences,  noiseless  machinery — these  are  common  sights, 
and  soon  become  familiar  to  observation.  I  sometimes  rode  for  miles 
in  succession  over  fertile  ground  which  used  to  be  cultivated,  and  which 
is  now  lying  waste.  So  rapidly  has  cultivation  retrogaded,  and  the 
wild  luxuriance  of  nature  replaced  the  conveniences  of  art,  that  parties 
still  inhabiting  these  desolated  districts,  have  sometimes,  in  the  strong 
language  of  a  speaker  at  Kingston,  '  to  seek  about  the  bush  to  find  the 
entrance  into  their  houses.' 

"  The  towns  present  a  spectacle  not  less  gloomy.  A  great  part  of 
Kingston  was  destroyed,  some  years  ago,  by  an  extensive  conflagration : 
yet  multitudes  of  the  houses  which  escaped  that  visitation  are  standing 
empty,  though  the  population  is  little,  if  at  all  diminished.  The  ex 
planation  is  obvious.  Persons  who  have  nothing,  and  can  no  longer 
keep  up  their  domestic  establisments,  take  refuge  in  the  abodes  of 
others,  where  some  means  of  subsistence  are  still  left:  and  in  the 
absence  of  any  discernible  trade  or  occupation,  the  lives  of  crowded 
thousands  appear  to  be  preserved  from  day  to  day  by  a  species  of 
miracle.  The  most  busy  thoroughfares  of  former  times  have  now 
almost  the  quietude  of  a  Sabbath." 

"  The  finest  land  in  the  world,"  says  Mr.  Bigelow,  "  may  be  had 
at  any  price,  and  almost  for  the  asking."  Labour,  he  adds, 
"  receives  no  compensation,  and  the  product  of  labour  does  not 
seem  to  know  how  to  find  the  way  to  market."  Properties  which 
were  formerly  valued  at  £40,000  would  not  now  command  £4000, 
and  others,  after  having  been  sold  at  six,  eight,  or  ten  per  cent,  of 
their  former  value,  have  been  finally  abandoned. 

The  following  is  from  a  report  made  in  1849  and  signed  by 
various  missionaries : — 

"  Missionary  efforts  in  Jamaica  are  beset  at  the  present  time  with 
many  and  great  discouragements.  Societies  at  home  have  withdrawn 
or  diminished  the  amount  of  assistance  afforded  by  them  to  chapels 
and  schools  throughout  this  island.  The  prostrate  condition  of  its 
agriculture  and  cgmmerce  disables  its  own  population  from  doing  as 
much  as  formerly  for  maintaining  the  worship  of  God  and  the  tuition 

*  State  and  Prospects  of  Jamaica. 


28  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

of  the  young,  and  induces  numbers  of  negro  labourers  to  retire  from 
estates  which  have  been  thrown  up,  to  seek  the  means  of  subsistence 
in  the  mountains,  where  they  are  removed  in  general  from  moral 
training  and  superintendence.  The  consequences  of  this  state  of 
matters  are  very  disastrous.  Not  a  few  missionaries  and  teachers, 
often  struggling  with  difficulties  which  they  could  not  overcome,  have 
returned  to  Europe,  and  others  are  preparing  to  follow  them.  Chapels 
and  schools  are  abandoned,  or  they  have  passed  into  the  charge  of 
very  incompetent  instructors." — Quoted  in  King's  Jamaica,  p.  111. 

Population  gradually  diminishes,  furnishing  another  evidence 
that  the  tendency  of  every  thing  is  adverse  to  the  progress  of 
civilization.  In  1841,  the  island  contained  a  little  short  of 
400,000  persons.  In  1844,  the  census  returns  gave  about  380,000 ; 
and  a  recent  journal  states  that  of  those  no  less  than  forty  thousand 
have  in  the  last  two  years  been  carried  off  by  cholera,  and  that 
small-pox,  which,  has  succeeded  that  disease,  is  now  sweeping 
away  thousands  whom  that  disease  had  spared.  Increase  of  crime, 
it  adds,  keeps  pace  with  the  spread  of  misery  throughout  the  island. 

The  following  extracts  from  a  Report  of  a  Commission  ap 
pointed  in  1850  to  inquire  into  the  state  and  prosperity  of  Gruiana, 
are  furnished  by  Lord  Stanley  in  his  second  letter  to  Mr.  Gladstone, 
[London,  1851.] 

Of  Guiana  generally  they  say — 

"'It  would  be  but  a  melancholy  task  to  dwell  upon  the  misery  and 
ruin  which  so  alarming  a  change  must  have  occasioned  to  the  proprie 
tary  body;  but  your  Commissioners  feel  themselves  called  upon  to 
notice  the  effects  which  this  wholesale  abandonment  of  property  has 
produced  upon  the  colony  at  large.  Where  whole  districts  are  fast 
relapsing  into  bush,  and  occasional  patches  of  provisions  around  the 
huts  of  village  settlers  are  all  that  remain  to  tell  of  once  flourishing 
estates,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  most  ordinary  marks  of 
civilization  are  rapidly  disappearing,  and  that  in  many  districts  of  the 
colony  all  travelling  communication  by  land  will  soon  become  utterly 
impracticable/ 

"Of  the  Abary  district — 

" '  Your  Commissioners  find  that  the  line  of  road  is  nearly  impassable, 
and  that  a  long  succession  of  formerly  cultivated  estates  presents  now 
a  series  of  pestilent  swamps,  overrun  with  bush,  and  productive  of 
malignant  fevers/ 

"Nor  are  matters,"  says  Lord  Stanley,  "much  better  farther  south — 

"'Proceeding  still  lower  down,  your  Commissioners  find  that  the 
public  roads  and  bridges  are  in  such  a  condition,  that  the  few  estates 
still  remaining  on  the  upper  west  bank  of  Mahaica  Creek  are  completely 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  29 

cat  off,  save  in  the  very  dry  season  ;  and  that  with  regard  to  the  whole 
district,  unless  something  be  done  very  shortly,  travelling  by  land  will 
entirely  cease.  In  such  a  state  of  things  it  cannot  be  wondered  at 
that  the  herdsman  has  a  formidable  enemy  to  encounter  in  the  jaguar 
and  other  beasts  of  prey,  and  that  the  keeping  of  cattle  is  attended 
with  considerable  loss,  from  the  depredations  committed  by  these 
animals.' 

" It  may  be  worth  noticing,"  continues  Lord  Stanley,  "that  this  dis 
trict,  now  overrun  with  wild  beasts  of  the  forest,  was  formerly  the_ 
very  garden  of  the  colony.     The  estates  touched  one  another  along  the 
whole  line  of  the  road,  leaving  no  interval  of  uncleared  land. 

"The  east  coast,  which  is  next  mentioned  by  the  Commissioners,  is 
better  off.  Properties  once  of  immense  value  had  there  been  bought 
at  nominal  prices,  and  the  one  railroad  of  Guiana  passing  through  that 
tract,  a  comparatively  industrious  population,  composed  of  former 
labourers  on  the  line,  enabled  the  planters  still  to  work  these  to  some 
profit.  Even  of  this  favoured  spot,  however,  they  report  that  it  "  feels 
most  severely  the  want  of  continuous  labour/  The  Commissioners 
next  visit  the  east  bank  of  the  Demerara  river,  thus  described : — 

"'Proceeding  up  the  east  bank  of  the  river  Demerary,  the  generally 
prevailing  features  of  ruin  and  distress  are  everywhere  perceptible. 
Roads  and  bridges  almost  impassable  are  fearfully  significant  expo 
nents  of  the  condition  of  the  plantations  which  they  traverse ;  and 
Canal  No.  3,  once  covered  with  plantains  and  coffee,  presents  now  a 
scene  of  almost  total  desolation/ 

"Crossing  to  the  west  side,  they  find  prospects  somewhat  brighter: 
*  a  few  estates'  are  still  '  keeping  up  a  cultivation  worthy  of  better 
times/  But  this  prosperous  neighbourhood  is  not  extensive,  and  the 
next  picture  presented  to  our  notice  is  less  agreeable : — 

"'Ascending  the  river  still  higher,  your  Commissioners  learn  that 
the  district  between  Hobaboe  Creek  and  '  Stricken  Ileuvel'  contained, 
in  1829,  eight  sugar  and  five  coffee  and  plantain  estates,  and  now  there 
remain  but  three  in  sugar  and  four  partially  cultivated  with  plantains 
by  petty  settlers :  while  the  roads,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  are  in 
a  state  of  utter  abandonment.  Here,  as  on  the  opposite  bank  of  the 
river,  hordes  of  squatters  have  located  themselves,  who  avoid  all  com 
munication  with  Europeans,  and  have  seemingly  given  themselves  up 
altogether  to  the  rude  pleasures  of  a  completely  savage  life/ 

"  The  west  coast  of  Demerara — the  only  part  of  that  country  which 
still  remains  unvisited — is  described  as  showing  only  a  diminution  of 
fifty  per  cent,  upon  its  produce  of  sugar :  and  with  this  fact  the  evidence 
concludes  as  to  one  of  the  three  sections  into  which  the  colony  is 
divided.  Does  Demerara  stand  alone  in  its  misfortune?  Again  hear 
the  report : — 

"'If  the  present  state  of  the  county  of  Demerary  affords  cause  for 
deep  apprehension,  your  Commissioners  find  that  Essequebo  has  retro 
graded  to  a  still  more  alarming  extent.  In  fact,  unless  a  large  and 
speedv  supplv  of  labour  be  obtained  to  cultivate  the  deserted  fields  of 

3* 


80  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

this  once-flourishing  district,  there  is  great  reason  to  fear  that  it  will 
relapse  into  total  abandonment/ 

Describing  another  portion  of  the  colony — 

"  They  say  of  one  district,  '  unless  a  fresh  supply  of  labour  be  very 
soon  obtained,  there  is  every  reason  to  fear  that  it  will  become  com 
pletely  abandoned/  Of  a  second,  '  speedy  immigration  alone  can  save 
this  island  from  total  ruin/  'The  prostrate  condition  of  this  once 
beautiful  part  of  the  coast/  are  the  words  which  begin  another  para 
graph,  describing  another  tract  of  country.  Of  a  fourth,  '  the  proprie 
tors  on  this  coast  seem  to  be  keeping  up  a  hopeless  struggle  against 
approaching  ruin.  Again,  'the  once  famous  Arabian  coast,  so  long 
the  boast  of  the  colony,  presents  now  but  a  mournful  picture  of  de 
parted  prosperity.  Here  were  formerly  situated  some  of  the  finest 
estates  in  the  country,  and  a  large  resident  body  of  proprietors  lived 
in  the  district,  and  freely  expended  their  incomes  on  the  spot  whence 
they  derived  them/  Once  more,  the  lower  part  of  the  coast,  after 
passing  Devonshire  Castle  to  the  river  Pomeroon,  presents  a  scene  of 
almost  total  desolation/  Such  is  Essequibo!" 

"  Berbice,"  says  Lord  Stanley,  "  has  fared  no  better :  its  rural  popu 
lation  amounts  to  18,000.  Of  these,  12,000  have  withdrawn  from  the 
estates,  and  mostly  from  the  neighbourhood  of  the  white  man,  to  enjoy 
a  savage  freedom  of  ignorance  and  idleness,  beyond  the  reach  of  ex 
ample  and  sometimes  of  control.  But,  on  the  condition  of  the  negro 
I  shall  dwell  more  at  length  hereafter ;  at  present  it  is  the  state  of 
property  with  which  I  have  to  do.  What  are  the  districts  Avhich 
together  form  the  county  of  Berbice  ?  The  Corentyne  coast — the  Canje 
Creek — East  and  West  banks  of  the  Berbice  River — and  the  West 
coast,  where,  however,  cotton  was  formerly  the  chief  article  produced. 
To  each  of  these  respectively  the  following  passages,  quoted  in  order, 
apply:— 

'"The  abandoned  plantations  on  this  coast,*  which  if  capital  and 
labour  could  be  procured,  might  easily  be  made  very  productive,  are 
either  wholly  deserted  or  else  appropriated  by  hordes  of  squatters,  who 
of  course  are  unable  to  keep  up  at  their  own  expense  the  public  roads 
and  bridges,  and  consequently  all  communication  by  land  between  the 
Corentyne  and  New  Amsterdam  is  nearly  at  an  end.  The  roads  are 
impassable  for  horses  or  carriages,  while  for  foot-passengers  they  are 
extremely  dangerous.  The  number  of  villagers  in  this  deserted  region 
must  be  upward  of  2500,  and  as  the  country  abounds  with  fish  and 
game,  they  have  no  difficulty  in  making  a  subsistence ;  in  fact,  the 
Corentyne  coast  is  fast  relapsing  into  a  state  of  nature/ 

"'Canje  Creek  was  formerly  considered  a  flourishing  district  of  the 
county,  and  numbered  on  its  east  bank  seven  sugar  and  three  coffee 
estates,  and  on  its  west  bank  eight  estates,  of  which  two  were  in  sugar 
and  six  in  coffee,  making  a  total  of  eighteen  plantations.  The  coffee 
cultivation  has  long  since  been  entirely  abandoned,  and  of  the  sugar 
estates  but  eight  still  now  remain.  They  are  suffering  severely  fur 

*  The  Corentyne. 


DOMESTIC   AXD   FOREIGN.  31 

want  of  labour,  and  being  supported  principally  by  African  and  Coolie 
immigrants,  it  is  much  to  be  feared  that  if  the  latter  leave  and  claim 
their  return  passages  to  India,  a  great  part  of  the  district  will  become 
abandoned.' 

" '  Under  present  circumstances,  so  gloomy  is  the  condition  of  affairs 
here,*  that  the  two  gentlemen  whom  your  Commissioners  have  ex 
amined  with  respect  to  this  district,  both  concur  in  predicting  "  its  slow 
but  sure  approximation  to  the  condition  in  which  civilized  man  first 
found  it.'" 

"'A  districtf  that  in  1829,  gave  employment  to  3635  registered 
slaves,  but  at  the  present  moment  there  are  not  more  than  GOO  labourers 
at  work  on  the  few  estates  still  in  cultivation,  although  it  is  estimated 
there  are  upwards  of  2000  people  idling  in  villages  of  their  own.  The 
roads  are  in  many  parts  several  feet  under  water,  and  perfect  swamps ; 
while  in  some  places  the  bridges  are  wanting  altogether.  In  fact,  the 
whole  district  is  fast  becoming  a  total  wilderness,  with  the  exception 
of  the  one  or  two  estates  which  yet  continue  to  struggle  on,  and  which 
are  hardly  accessible  now  but  by  water.' 

'"Except  in  some  of  the  best  villages, J  they  care  not  for  back  or 
front  dams  to  keep  off  the  water  ;  their  side-lines  are  disregarded,  and 
consequently  the  drainage  is  gone  ;  while  in  many  instances  the  public 
road  is  so  completely  flooded  that  canoes  have  to  be  used  as  a  means 
of  transit.  The  Africans  are  unhappily  following  the  example  of  the 
Creoles  in  this  district,  and  buying  land,  on  which  they  settle  in  con 
tented  idleness;  and  your  Commissioners 'cannot  view" instances  like 
these  without  the  deepest  alarm,  for  if  this  pernicious  habit  of  squat 
ting  is  allowed  to  extend  to  the  immigrants  also,  there  is  no  hope  for 
the  colony.' " 

Under  these  circumstances  it  is  that  the  London  Times  furnishes 
its  readers  with  the  following  paragraph, — and  as  that  journal  cannot 
be  regarded  as  the  opponent  of  the  classes  which  have  lately  con 
trolled  the  legislation  of  England,  we  may  feel  assured  that  its 
information  is  to  be  relied  upon: — 

"  Our  legislation  has  been  dictated  by  the  presumed  necessities  of 
the  African  slave.  After  the  Emancipation  Act,  a  large  charge  was 
assessed  upon  the  colony  in  aid  of  civil  and  religious  institutions  for 
the  benefit  of  the  enfranchised  negro,  and  it  was  hoped  that  those 
coloured  subjects  of  the  British  Crown  would  soon  be  assimilated  to 
their  fellow-citizens.  From  all  the  information  which  has  reached  us,  no 
less  than  from  the  visible  probabilities  of  the  case,  we  are  constrained 
to  believe  that  these  hopes  have  been  falsified.  The  negro  has  not  obtained 
with  Ids  freedom  any  habits  of  industry  or  morality.  His  independence 
in  little  better  than  that  of  an  uncaptured  brute.  Having  accepted  none 
of  the  restraints  of  civilization,  he  is  amenable  to  few  of  its  necessities, 

*  East  bank  of  Berbice  river.  f  West  ditto. 

J  West  coast  of  Berbice, 


32 

and  the  wants  of  his  nature  are  so  easily  satisfied,  that  at  the  presenl 
rate  of  wages  he  is  called  upon  for  nothing  but  fitful  or  desultory  ex 
ertion.  The  blacks,  therefore,  instead  of  becoming  intelligent  husband- 
men,  have  become  vagrants  and  squatters,  and  it  is  now  apprehended  thai 
with  the  failure  of  cultivation  in  the  island  will  come  the  failure  .of  its 
resources  for  instructing  or  controlling  its  population.  So  imminent  doea 
this  consummation  appear,  that  memorials  have  been  signed  by  classes 
of  colonial  society,  hitherto  standing  aloof  from  politics,  and  not  only 
the  bench  and  the  bar,  but  the  bishop,  clergy,  and  the  ministers  of  all  de 
nominations  in  the  island,  without  exception,  have  recorded  their  convic 
tion  that  in  the  absence  of  timely  relief,  the  religious  and  educational 
institutions  of  the  island  must  be  abandoned,  and  the  masses  of  the  popu 
lation  retrogade  to  barbarism." 

The  Prospective  Review,  (Nov.  1852,)  seeing  what  has  happened 
in  the  British  colonies,  and  speaking  of  the  possibility  of  a  similar 
course  of  action  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  says — 

"  We  have  had  experience  enough  in  our  own  colonies,  not  to  wish 
to  see  the  experiment  tried  elsewhere  on  a  larger  scale.  It  is  true  that 
from  some  of  the  smaller  islands,  where  there  is  a  superabundance  of 
negro  population  and  no  room  for  squatters,  the  export  of  sugar  has 
not  been  diminished :  it  is  true  that  in  Jamaica  and  Demerara,  the 
commercial  distress  is  largely  attributable  to  the  folly  of  the  planters — 
who  doggedly  refuse  to  accommodate  themselves  to  the  new  state  of 
things,  and  to  entice  the  negroes  from  the  back  settlements  by  a  pro 
mise  of  fay1  wages.  But  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  whole 
tragi-comedy  would  not  be  re-enacted  in  the  Slave  States  of  America, 
if  slavery  were  summarily  abolished  by  act  of  Congress  to-morrow. 
Property  among  the  plantations  consists  only  of  land  and  negroes : 
emancipate  the  negroes — and  the  planters  have  no  longer  any  capital 
for  the  cultivation  of  the  land.  Put  the  case  of  compensation :  though 
it  be  difficult  to  see  whence  it  could  come:  there  is  every  probability 
that  the  planters  of  Alabama,  accustomed 'all  their  lives  to  get  black 
labour  for  nothing,  would  be  as  unwilling  to  pay  for  it  as  their  com 
peers  in  Jamaica :  and  there  is  plenty  of  unowned  land  on  which  the 
disbanded  gangs  might  settle  and  no  one  question  their  right.  It  is 
allowed  on  all  hands  that  the  negroes  as  a  race  will  not  work  longer 
than  is  necessary  to  supply  the  simplest  comforts  of  life.  It  would  be 
wonderful  were  it  otherwise.  A  people  have  been  degraded  and  ground 
down  for  a  century  and  a  half:  systematically  kept  in  ignorance  for 
five  generations  of  any  needs  and  enjoyments  beyond  those  of  the  savage: 
and  then  it  is  made  matter  of  complaint  that  they  will  not  apply  them 
selves  to  labour  for  their  higher  comforts  and  more  refined  luxuries, 
of  which  they  cannot  know  the  value !" 

The  systematic  degradation  here  referred  to  is  probably  quite 
true  as  regards  the  British  Islands,  where  660,000  were  all  that 
remained  of  almost  two  millions  that  had  been  imported;  but  it  is 
quite  a  mistake  to  suppose  it  so  in  regard  to  this  country,  in  which 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  33 

there  are  now  found  ten  persons  for  every  one  ever  imported,  and 
all  advancing  by  gradual  steps  toward  civilization  and  freedom ;  aivl 
yet  were  the  reviewer  discoursing  of  the  conduct  of  the  Spanish 
settlers  of  Hispaniola,  he  could  scarcely  speak  more  disparagingly 
of  them  than  he  does  in  regard  to  a  people  that  alone  has  so  .  • 
treated  the  negro  race  as  to  enable  it  to  increase  in  numbers,  and 
improve  in  its  physical,  moral,  and  intellectual  condition.  Had, 
he  been,  more  fully  informed  in  relation  to  the  proceedings  in  the 
British  colonies,  and  in  these  colonies  and  states,  he  could  scarcely 
have  ventured  to  assert  that  "  the  responsibility  of  having  degraded 
the  African  race  rests  upon  the  American  people," — the  only  people 
among  whom  they  have  been  improved.  Nevertheless,  it  is  righfc 
and  proper  to  give  due  weight  to  all  opinions  in  regard  to  the  ex 
istence  of  an  evil,  and  to  all  recommendations  in  regard  to  the  mode 
of  removal,  let  them  come  from  what  source  they  may;  and  the 
writer  of  the  article  from  which  this  passage  is  taken  is  certainly 
animated  by  a  somewhat  more  liberal  and  catholic  spirit  than  is 
found  animating  many  of  his  countrymen. 

That  the  English  system  in  regard  to  the  emancipation  of  the 
negro  has  proved  a  failure  is  now  admitted  even  by  those  who  most  - 
warmly  advocated  the  measures  that  have  been  pursued.  "  There 
are  many,"  says  the  London  Times,  "who  think  that,  with  proper 
regulations,  and  particularly  with  a  system  for  the  self-enfranchise 
ment  of  slaves,  we  might  have  brought  about  the  entire  emancipa 
tion  of  the  British  West  Indies,  with  much  less  injury  to  the 
property  of  the  planter  and  to  the  character  of  the  negro  than  have 
resulted  from  the  Abolition  Act.  Perhaps,"  it  continues,  "the 
warning  will  not  be  lost  on  the  Americans,  who  may  see  the 
necessity  of  putting  things  in  train  for  the  ultimate  abolition  of 
slavery,  and  thereby  save  the  sudden  shock  which  the  abolition 
ists  may  one  day  bring  on  all  the  institutions  of  the  Union  and  the 
whole  fabric  of  American  society." 

The  Falmouth  [Jamaica]  Post,  of  December  12, 1852,  informs  us 
that,  even  now,  "in  every  parish  of  the  island  preparations  are 
being  made  for  the  abandonment  of  properties  that  were  once 
valuable,  but  on  which  cultivation  can  no  longer  be  continued." 


34  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

uln  Trelawny,"  it  continues,  "many  estates  have  been  thrown 
up  during  the  last  two  years,  and  the  exportation  to  the  United 
States  of  America,  within  a  few  months,  of  upward  of  80,000 
tons  of  copper,  which  was  used  for  the  manufacture  of  sugar 
and  rum,  is  one  of  the  l signs  of  the  times/  to  which  the  attention 
of  the  legislature  should  be  seriously  directed,  in  providing  for 
the  future  maintenance  of  our  various  institutions,  both  public 
and  parochial.  Unless  the  salaries  of  all  official  characters  are 
reduced^  it  will  be  utterly  impossible  to  carry  on  the  government 
of  the  colony." 

Eighty  thousand  tons  of  machinery  heretofore  used  in  aid  of 
labour,  or  nearly  one  ton  for  every  four  persons  on  the  island,  ex 
ported  within  a  few  months  !  The  Bande  Noire  of  France  pulled 
down  dwelling-houses  and  sold  the  materials,  but  as  they  left  the 
machinery  used  by  the  labourers,  their  operations  were  less  injurious 
than  have  been  those  of  the  negroes  of  Jamaica,  the  demand  for 
whose  labour  must  diminish  with  every  step  in  the  progress  of  the 
abandonment  of  land  and  the  destruction  of  machinery.  Under 
such  circumstances  we  can  feel  little  surprise  at  learning  that  every 
thing  tends  towards  barbarism  ;  nor  is  it  extraordinary  that  a  writer 
already  quoted,  and  who  is  not  to  be  suspected  of  any  pro-slavery 
tendencies,  puts  the  question,  "Is  it  enough  that  they  [the  Ame 
ricans]  simply  loose  their  chain  and  turn  them  adrift  lower,"  as 
he  is  pleased  to  say,  "than  they  found  them  ?"*  It  is  not 
enough.  They  need  to  be  prepared  for  freedom.  "Immediate 
emancipation,"  as  he  says,  "solves  only  the  simplest  forms  of  the 
problem." 

The  land-owner  has  been  ruined  and  the  labourer  is  fast  relaps 
ing  into  barbarism,  and  yet  in  face  of  this  fact  the  land-owners  of 
the  Southern  States  are  branded  throughout  the  world  as  "tyrants" 
and  "  slave-breeders,"  because  they  will  not  follow  in  the  same 
direction.  It  is  in  face  of  this  great  fact  that  the  people  of  the 
North  are  invited  to  join  in  a  crusade  against  their  brethren  of 
the  South  because  they  still  continue  to  hold  slaves,  and  that  the 

*  Prospective  Review,  Nov.  185.2,  504. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  3<3 

men  of  the  South  are  themselves  so  frequently  urged  to  assent  to 
immediate  and  unconditional  emancipation. 

In  all  this  there  may  be  much  philanthropy,  but  there  is  cer 
tainly  much  error, — and  with  a  view  to  determine  where  it  lies,  as  well 
as  to  show  what  is  the  true  road  to  emancipation,  it  is  proposed  to 
inquire  what  has  been,  in  the  various  countries  of  the  world,  the 
course  by  which  men  have  passed  from  poverty  to  wealth,  from  igno 
rance  and  barbarism  to  civilization,  and  from  slavery  to  freedom. 
That  done,  we  may  next  inquire  for  the  causes  now  operating  to 
prevent  the  emancipation  of  the  negro  of  America  and  the  occupant 
of  "the  sweater's  den"  in  London;  and  if  they  can  once  be  ascer 
tained,  it  will  be  then  easy  to  determine  what  are  the  measures 
needful  to  be  adopted  with  a  view  to  the  establishment  of  freedom 
throughout  the  world. 


CHAPTER  V. 

HOW  MAN  PASSES  FROM  POVERTY  AND  SLAVERY  TOWARD 
WEALTH  AND  FREEDOM. 

THE  first  poor  cultivator  is  surrounded  by  land  unoccupied. 
The  more  of  it  at  his  command  the  poorer  he  is.  Compelled  to 
work  alone,  he  is  a  slave  to  his  necessities,  and  he  can  neither  roll 
nor  raise  a  log  with  which  to  build  himself  a  house.  He  makes 
himself  a  hole  in  the  ground,  which  serves  in  place  of  one.  He 
cultivates  the  poor  soil  of  the  hills  to  obtain  a  little  corn,  with 
which  to  eke  out  the  supply  of  food  derived  from  snaring  the  game 
in  his  neighbourhood.  His  winter's  supply  is  deposited  in  another 
hole,  liable  to  injury  from  the  water  which  filters  through  the 
light  soil  into  which  alone  he  can  penetrate.  He  is  in  hourly 
danger  of  starvation.  At  length,  however,  his  sons  grow  up. 
They  combine  their  exertions  with  his,  and  now  obtain  something 
like  an  axe  and  a^spade.  They  can  sink  deeper  into  the  soil ;  and 
can  cut  logs,  and  build  something  like  a  house.  They  obtain 


36  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

more  corn  and  more  game,  and  they  can  preserve  it  better.  The 
danger  of  starvation  is  diminished.  Being  no  longer  forced  to 
depend  for  fuel  upon  the  decayed  wood  which  was  all  their  father 
could  command,  they  are  in  less  danger  of  perishing  from  cold  in 
the  elevated  ground  which,  from  necessity,  they  occupy.  With 
the  growth  of  the  family  new  soils  are  cultivated,  each  in  succes 
sion  yielding  a  larger  return  to  labour,  and  they  obtain  a  constantly 
increasing  supply  of  the  necessaries  of  life  from  a  surface  diminish 
ing  in  its  ratio  to  the  number  to  be  fed;  and  thus  with  every 
increase  in  the  return  to  labour  the  power  of  combining  their 
exertions  is  increased. 

If  we  look  now  to  the  solitary  settler  of  the  West,  even  where 
provided  with  both  axe  and  spade,  we  shall  see  him  obtaining,  with 
extreme  difficulty,  the  commonest  log  hut.  A  neighbour  arrives, 
and  their  combined  efforts  produce  a  new  house  with  less  than  half 
the  labour  required  for  the  first.  That  neighbour  brings  a  horse, 
and  he  makes  something  like  a  cart.  The  product  of  their  labour 
is  now  ten  times  greater  than  was  that  of  the  first  man  working  by 
himself.  More  neighbours  come,  and  new  houses  are  needed.  A 
"  bee"  is  made,  and  by  the  combined  effort  of  the  neighbourhood 
the  third  house  is  completed  in  a  day;  whereas  the  first  cost 
months,  and  the  second  weeks,  of  far  more  severe  exertion.  These 
new  neighbours  have  brought  ploughs  and  horses,  and  now  better 
soils  are  cultivated,  and  the  product  of  labour  is  again  increased, 
as  is  the  power  to  preserve  the  surplus  for  winter's  use.  The  path 
becomes  a  road.  Exchanges  increase.  The  store  makes  its  appear 
ance.  Labour  is  rewarded  by  larger  returns,  because  aided  by 
better  machinery  applied  to  better  soils.  The  town  grows  up. 
Each  successive  addition  to  the  population  brings  a  consumer  and 
a  producer.  The  shoemaker  desires  leather  and  corn  in  exchange 
for  his  shoes.  The  blacksmith  requires  fuel  and  food,  and  the 
farmer  wants  shoes  for  his  horses;  and  with  the  increasing  facility 
of  exchange  more  labour  is  applied  to  production,  and  the  reward 
of  labour  rises,  producing  new  desires,  and  requiring  more  and 
larger  exchanges.  The  road  becomes  a  turnpike,  and  the  wagon 
and  horses  are  seen  upon  it.  The  town  becomes  a  city,  and  better 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  61 

soils  are  cultivated  for  the  supply  of  its  markets,  while  the  railroad 
facilitates  exchanges  with  towns  and  cities  yet  more  distant.  The 
tendency  to  union  and  to  combination  of  exertion  thus  grows  with 
the  growth  of  wealth.  In  a  state  of  extreme  poverty  it  cannot  be 
developed.  The  insignificant  tribe  of  savages  that  starves  on  the 
product  of  the  superficial  soil  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres  of 
land,  looks  with  jealous  eye  on  every  intruder,  knowing  that  each 
new  mouth  requiring  to  be  fed  tends  to  increase  the  difficulty  of 
obtaining  subsistence;  whereas  the  farmer  rejoices  in  the  arrival 
of  the  blacksmith  and  the  shoemaker,  because  they  come  to  eat 
on  the  spot  the  corn  which  heretofore  he  has  carried  ten,  twenty, 
or  thirty  miles  to  market,  to  exchange  for  shoes  for  himself  and 
his  horses.  With  each  new  consumer  of  his  products  that  arrives 
he  is  enabled  more  and  more  to  concentrate  his  action  and  his 
thoughts  upon  his  home,  while  each  new  arrival  tends  to  increase 
his  power  of  consuming  commodities  brought  from  a  distance,  be- 
.cause  it  tends  to  diminish  his  necessity  for  seeking  at  a  distance  a 
market  for  the  produce  of  his  farm.  Give  to  the  poor  tribe  spades, 
and  the  knowledge  how  to  use  them,  and  the  power  of  association 
will  begin.  The  supply  of  food  becoming  more  abundant,  they 
hail  the  arrival  of  the  stranger  who  brings  them  knives  and  clothing 
to  be  exchanged  for  skins  and  corn ;  wealth  grows,  and  the  habit 
of  association— the  first  step  toward  civilization— arises. 

The  little  tribe  is,  however,  compelled  to  occupy  the  higher 
lands.  The  lower  ones  are  a  mass  of  dense  forests  and  dreary 
swamps,  while  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  runs  a  river,  fordable  but  for 
a  certain  period  of  the  year.  On  the  hillside,  distant  a  few  miles, 
is  another  tribe ;  but  communication  between  them  is  difficult,  be 
cause,  the  river  bottom,  being  yet  uncleared,  roads  cannot  be  made, 
and  bridges  are  as  yet  unthought  of.  Population  and  wealth, 
however,  continue  to  increase,  and  the  lower  lands  come  gradually 
into  cultivation,  yielding  larger  returns  to  labour,  and  enabling  the 
tribe  to  obtain  larger  supplies  of  food  with  less  exertion,  and  to 
spare  labour  to  be  employed  for  other  purposes.  Roads  are  made 
in  the  direction  of  the  river  bank.  .  Population  increases  morft 
rapidly  because  of  the  increased  supplies  of  food  and  the  increased 

4 


THE    SLAVE    TRADE 


power  of  preserving  it,  arid  wealth  grows  still  more  rapidly.  The 
river  bank  at  length  is  reached,  and  some  of  the  best  lands  are 
now  cleared.  Population  grows  again,  and  a  new  element  of  wealth 
is  seen  in  the  form  of  a  bridge;  and  now  the  two  little  communities 
are  enabled  to  communicate  more  freely  with  each  other.  One 
rejoices  in  the  possession  of  a  wheelwright,  while  the  other  has  a 
windmill.  One  wants  carts,  and  the  other  has  corn  to  grind. 
One  has  cloth  to  spare,  while  the  other  has  more  leather  than  is 
needed  for  its  purpose.  Exchanges  increase,  and  the  little  town 
grows  because  of  the  increased  amount  of  trade.  Wealth  grows 
still  more  rapidly,  because  of  new  modes  of  combining  labour,  by 
which  that  of  all  is  rendered  more  productive.  Roads  are  now 
made  in  the  direction  of  other  communities,  and  the  work  is  per 
formed  rapidly,  because  the  exertions  of  the  two  are  now  combined, 
and  because  the  machinery  used  is  more  efficient.  One  after 
another  disappear  forests  and  swamps  that  have  occupied  the  fertile 
lands,  separating  ten,  twenty,  fifty,  or  five  hundred  communities, 
which  now  are  brought  into  connection  with  each  other ;  and  with 
each  step  labour  becomes  more  and  more  productive,  and  is  re 
warded  with  better  food,  clothing,  and  shelter.  Famine  and 
disease  disappear,  life  is  prolonged,  population  is  increased,  and 
therewith  the  tendency  to  that  combination  of  exertion  among  the 
individuals  composing  these  communities,  which  is  the  distinguish 
ing  characteristic  of  civilization  in  all  nations  and  in  all  periods  of 
the  world.  With  further  increase  of  population  and  wealth,  the 
desires  of  man,  and  his  ability  to  gratify  them,  both  increase. 
The  nation,  thus  formed,  has  more  corn  than  it  needs;  but  it  has 
no  cotton,  and  its  supply  of  wool  is  insufficient.  The  neighbouring 
nation  has  cotton  and  wool,  and  needs  corn.  They  are  still  divided, 
however,  by  broad  forests,  deep  swamps,  and  rapid  rivers.  Popu 
lation  increases,  and  the  great  forests  and  swamps  disappear,  giving 
place  to  rich  farms,  through  which  broad  roads  are  made,  with  im 
mense  bridges,  enabling  the  merchant  to  transport  his  wool 
and  his  cotton  to  exchange  with  his  now  rich  neighbours  for  their 
surplus  corn  or  sugar.  Nations  now  combine  their  exertions,  and 
wealth  grows  with  still  increased  rapidity,  facilitating  the  drainage 


DOMESTIC    AXD    FOREIGN.  39 

of  marshes,  and  thus  bringing  into  activity  the  richest  soils;  while 
coal-mines  cheaply  furnish  the  fuel  for  converting  limestone  into 
lime,  and  iron  ore  into  axes  and  spades,  and  into  rails  for  the  new 
roads  needed  for  transporting  to  market  the  vast  products  of 
the  fertile  soils  now  in  use,  and  to  bring  back  the  large  supplies 
of  sugar,  tea,  coffee,  and  the  thousand  other  products  of  distant 
lands  with  which  intercourse  now  exists.  At  each  step  population 
and  wealth  and  happiness  and  prosperity  take  a  new  bound ;  and 
men  realize  with  difficulty  the  fact  that  the  country  which  now 
affords  to  tens  of  millions  all  the  necessaries,  comforts,  conveniences, 
and  luxuries  of  life,  is  the  same  that,  when  the  superabundant  land 
was  occupied  by  tens  of  thousands  only,  gave  to  that  limited  num 
ber  scanty  supplies  of  the  worst  food ;  so  scanty  that  famines  were 
frequent  and  sometimes  so  severe  that  starvation  was  followed  in 
its  wake  by  pestilence,  which,  at  brief  intervals,  swept  from  the 
earth  the  population  of  the  little  and  scattered  settlements,  among 
which  the  people  were  forced  to  divide  themselves  when  they  cul 
tivated  only  the  poor  soils  of  the  hills. 

The  course  of  events  here  described  is  in  strict  accordance  with 
the  facts  observed  in  every  country  as  it  has  grown  in  wealth  and 
population.  The  early  settlers  of  all  the  countries  of  the  world  are 
seen  to  have  been  slaves  to  their  necessities — and  often  slaves  to 
their  neighbours ;  whereas,  with  the  increase  of  numbers  and  the 
increased  power  of  cultivation,  they  are  seen  passing  from  the 
poorer  soils  of  the  hills  to  the  fertile  soils  of  the  river  bottoms  and 
the  marshes,  with  constant  increase  in  the  return  to  labour,  and 
constantly  increasing  power  to  determine  for  themselves  for  whom 
they  will  work,  and  what  shall  be  their  reward.  This  view  is, 
however,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  theory  of  the  occupation  of 
land  taught  in  the  politico-economical  school  of  which  Mai  thus 
and  Ricardo  were  the  founders.  By  them  we  are  assured  that  tho 
settler  commences  always  on  the  low  and  rich  lands,  and  that,  as 
population  increases,  men  are  required  to  pass  toward  the  higher 
and  poorer  lands — and  of  course  up  the  hill — with  constantly 
diminishing  return  to  labour,  and  thus  that,  as  population  grows, 
man  becomes  more  and  more  a  slave  to  his  necessities,  and  to  those 


40  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

who  have  power  to  administer  to  his  wants,  involving  a  necessity 
for  dispersion  throughout  the  world  in  quest  of  the  rich  lands 
upon  which  the  early  settler  is  supposed  to  commence  his  opera 
tions.  It  is  in  reference  to  this  theory  that  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  says — 

"  This  general  law  of  agricultural  industry  is  the  most  important 
proposition  in  political  economy.  If  the  law  were  different,  almost 
all  the  phenomena  of  the  production  and  distribution  of  wealth  would 
be  other  than  they  are." 

In  the  view  thus  presented  by  Mr.  Mill  there  is  no  exaggera 
tion.  The  law  of  the  occupation  of  the  land  by  man  lies  at  the 
foundation  of  all  political  economy;  and  if  we  desire  to  know  what 
it  is  that  tends  to  the  emancipation  of  the  people  of  the  earth  from 
slavery,  we  must  first  satisfy  ourselves  that  the  theory  of  Messrs. 
Malthus  and  Ilicardo  has  not  only  no  foundation  in  fact,  but  that 
the  law  is  directly  the  reverse,  and  tends,  therefore,  toward  the 
adoption  of  measures  directly  opposed  to  those  that  would  be  needed 
were  that  theory  true.  The  great  importance  of  the  question  will 
excuse  the  occupation  of  a  few  minutes  of  the  reader's  attention  in 
placing  before  him  some  facts  tending  to  enable  him  to  satisfy  him 
self  in  regard  to  the  universality  of  the  law  now  offered  for  his 
consideration.  Let  him  inquire  where  he  may,  he  will  find  that 
the  early  occupant  did  not  commence  in  the  flats,  or  on  the  heavily 
timbered  land,  but  that  he  did  commence  on  the  higher  land,  where 
the  timber  was  lighter,  and  the  place  for  his  house  was  dry.  With 
increasing  ability,  he  is  found  draining  the  swamps,  clearing  the 
heavy  timber,  turning  up  the  marl,  or  burning  the  lime,  and  thus 
acquiring  control  over  more  fertile  soils,  yielding  a  constant  in 
crease  in  the  return  to  labour.  Let  him  then  trace  the  course  of 
early  settlement,  and  he  will  find  that  while  it  has  often  followed  the 
course  of  the  streams,  it  has  always  avoided  the  swamps  and  river 
bottoms.  The  earliest  settlements  of  this  country  were  on  the  poor 
est  lands  of  the  Union — those  of  New  England.  So  was  it  in 
New  York,  where  we  find  the  railroads  running  through  the  lower 
and  richer,  and  yet  uncultivated,  lands,  while  the  higher  lands 
right  and  left  have  long  been  cultivated.  So  is  it  now  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  Virginia,  and  Ohio.  In  South  Carolina  it  has  been  made 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  41 

the  subject  of  remark,  in  a  recent  discourse,  that  their  predecessors 
did  not  select  the  rich  lands,  and  that  millions  of  acres  of  the  finest 
meadow-land  in  that  State  still  remain  untouched.  The  settler  in 
the  prairies  commences  on  the  higher  and  drier  land,  leaving  the 
wet  prairie  and  the  slough — the  richest  soil — for  his  successors. 
The  lands  below  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio  are  among  the  richest  in 
the  world ;  yet  they  are  unoccupied,  and  will  continue  so  to  be  until 
wealth  and  population  shall  have  greatly  increased.  So  is  it  now 
with  the  low  and  rich  lands  of  Mexico.  So  was  it  in  South  America, 
the  early  cultivation  of  which  was  upon  the  poor  lands  of  the  west 
ern  slope,  Peru  and  Chili,  while  the  rich  lands  of  the  Amazon  and 
the  La  Plata  remained,  as  most  of  them  still  remain,  a  wilderness. 
In  the  West  Indies,  the  small  dry  islands  were  early  occupied, 
while  Porto  Rico  and  Trinidad,  abounding  in  rich  soils,  remained 
untouched.  The  early  occupants  of  England  were  found  on  the 
poorer  lands  of  the  centre  and  south  of  the  kingdom,  as  were  those 
of  Scotland  in  the  Highlands,  or  on  the  little  rocky  islands  of  the 
Channel.  Mona's  Isle  was  celebrated  while  the  rich  soil  of  the 
Lothians  remained  an  almost  unbroken  mass  of  forest,  and  the 
morasses  of  Lancashire  were  the  terror  of  travellers  long  after 
Hampshire  had  been  cleared  and  cultivated.  If  the  reader  desire 
to  find  the  birthplace  of  King  Arthur  and  the  earliest  seat  of 
English  power,  he  must  look  to  the  vicinity  of  the  royal  castle  of 
Tintagel,  in  the  high  and  dry  Cornwall.  Should  he  desire  other 
evidence  of  the  character  of  the  soil  cultivated  at  the  period  when 
land  abounded  and  men  were  few  in  number,  he  may  find  it  in  the 
fact  that  in  some  parts  of  England  there  is  scarcely  a  hill  top 
that  does  not  bear  evidence  of  early  occupation,*  and  in  the  further 
fact  that  the  mounds,  or  barrows,  are  almost  uniformly  composed  of 
stone,  because  those  memorials  "  are  found  most  frequently  where 
stone  was  more  readily  obtained  than  earth. "*]•  Caesar  found  the 
Gauls  occupying  the  high  lands  surrounding  the  Alps,  while  the 
rich  Venetia  remained  a  marsh.  The  occupation  of  the  Campagna 

*  The  Celt,  the  Roman,  and  the  Saxon,  by  Thomas  Wright,  p.  87. 
f  Ibid.  p.  56. 


42 

followed  long  after  that  of  the  Samnite  hills,  and  the  earliest  set 
tlors  of  the  Peloponnesus  cultivated  the  high  and  dry  Arcadia, 
while  the  cities  of  the  Argive  kings  of  the  days  of  Homer,  Mycenae 
and  Tiryns,  are  found  in  eastern  Argolis,  a  country  so  poor  as  to 
have  been  abandoned  prior  to  the  days  of  the  earliest  authentic 
history.  The  occupation  of  the  country  around  Meroe,  and  of  the 
Thebaid,  long  preceded  that  of  the  lower  lands  surrounding  Mem 
phis,  or  the  still  lower  and  richer  ones  near  Alexandria.  The 
negro  is  found  in  the  higher  portions  of  Africa,  while  the  rich 
lauds  along  the  river  courses  are  uninhabited.  The  little  islands 
of  Australia,  poor  and  dry,  are  occupied  by  a  race  far  surpassing  in 
civilization  those  of  the  neighbouring  continent,  who  have  rich 
soils  at  command.  The  poor  Persia  is  cultivated,  while  the  rich 
soils  of  the  ancient  Babylonia  are  only  ridden  over  by  straggling 
hordes  of  robbers.*  Layard  had  to  seek  the  hills  when  he  desired 
to  find  a  people  at  home.  Afghanistan  and  Cashmere  were  early  oc 
cupied,  and  thence  were  supplied  the  people  who  moved  toward 
the  deltas  of  the  Ganges  and  the  Indus,  much  of  both  of  which  still 
remains,  after  so  many  thousands  of  years,  in  a  state  of  wilderness. 
Look  where  we  may,  it  is  the  same.  The  land  obeys  the  same  great 
and  universal  law  that  governs  light,  power,  and  heat.  The  man  who 
works  alone  and  has  poor  machinery  must  cultivate  poor  land,  and 
content  himself  with  little  light,  little  power,  and  little  heat,  and 
those,  like  his  food,  obtained  in  exchange  for  much  labour;  while  he 
•who  works  in  combination  with  his  fellow-men  may  have  good 
machinery,  enabling  him  to  clear  and  cultivate  rich  land,  giving 
him  much  food,  and  enabling  him  to  obtain  much  light,  much  heat, 
arid  much  power,  in  exchange  for  little  labour.  The  first  is  a  crea 
ture  of  necessity — a  slave — and  as  such  is  man  universally  regarded 
by  Mr.  Ricardo  and  his  followers.  The  second  is  a  being  of 
jwicer — a  freeman — and  as  such  was  man  regarded  by  Adam  Smith, 
who  taught  that  the  more  men  worked  in  combination  with  each 

*  Where  population  and  wealth  diminish,  the  rich  soils  are  abandoned  and  men 
retire  to  the  poorer  ones,  as  is  seen  in  the  abandonment  of  the  delta  of  Egypt, 
of  the  Cainpagna,  of  the  valley  of  Mexico,  and  of  the  valleys  of  the  Tigris  and 
tne  Euphrates 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN. 

Other,  the  greater  would  be  the  facility  of  obtaining  food  and  all 
other  of  the  necessaries  and  comforts  of  life — and  the  more  widely 
they  were  separated,  the  less  would  be  the  return  to  labour  and 
capital,  and  the  smaller  the  power  of  production,  as  common  sense 
teaches  every  man  must  necessarily  be  the  case. 

It  will  now  readily  be  seen  how  perfectly  accurate  was  Mr.  Mill 
in  his  assertion  that,  "  if  the  law  were  different,  almost  all  the 
phenomena  of  the  production  and  distribution  of  wealth  would  be 
other  than  they  are/'  The  doctrine  of  Malthus  and  Ricardo  tends 
to  make  the  labourer  a  slave  to  the  owner  of  landed  or  other 
capital ;  but  happily  it  has  no  foundation  in  fact,  and  therefore  the 
natural  laws  of  the  production  and  distribution  of  wealth  tend  not 
to  slavery,  but  to  freedom. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

HOW   WEALTH   TENDS    TO   INCREASE. 

THE  first  poor  cultivator  commences,  as  we  have  seen,  his  opera 
tions  on  the  hillside.  Below  him  are  lands  upon  which  have  been 
carried  by  force  of  water  the  richer  portions  of  those  above,  as  well 
as  the  leaves  of  trees,  and  the  fallen  trees  themselves,  all  of  which 
have  from  time  immemorial  rotted  and  become  incorporated  with 
the  earth,  and  thus  have  been  produced  soils  fitted  to  yield  the 
largest  returns  to  labour;  yet  for  this  reason  are  they  inaccessible. 
Their  character  exhibits  itself  in  the  enormous  trees  with  which 
they  are  covered,  and  in  their  power  of  retaining  the  water  neces 
sary  to  aid  the  process  of  decomposition,  but  the  poor  settler  wants 
the  power  either  to  clear  them  of  their  timber,  or  to  drain  them 
of  the  superfluous  moisture.  He  begins  on  the  hillside,  but  by 
degrees  he  obtains  better  machinery  of  cultivation,  and  with  each 
step  in  this  direction  we  find  him  descending  the  hill  and  obtaining 
larger  return  to  labour.  He  has  more  food  for  himself,  and  he  has 
now  the  means  of  feeding  a  horse  or  an  ox.  Aided  by  the  manure 


44  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

that  is  thus  yielded  to  him  by  the  better  lands,  we  see  him  next 
retracing  his  steps,  improving  the  hillside,  and  compelling  it  to 
yield  a  return  double  that  which  he  at  first  obtained.  With  each 
step  down  the  hill,  he  obtains  still  larger  reward  for  his  labour, 
and  at  each  he  returns,  with  increased  power,  to  the  cultivation  of 
the  original  poor  soil.  He  has  now  horses  and  oxen,  and  while  by 
their  aid  he  extracts  from  the  new  soils  the  manure  that  had 
accumulated  for  ages,  he  has  also  carts  and  wagons  to  carry  it  up 
the  hill ;  and  at  each  step  his  reward  is  increased,  while  his  labours 
are  lessened.  He  goes  back  to  the  sand  and  raises  the  marl,  with 
which  he  covers  the  surface ;  or  he  returns  to  the  clay  and  sinks 
into  the  limestone,  by  aid  of  which  he  doubles  its  product.  He  is 
all  the  time  making  a  machine  which  feeds  him  while  he  makes  it, 
and  which  increases  in  its  powers  the  more  he  takes  from  it.  At 
first  it  was  worthless.  Having  now  fed  and  clothed  him  for  years, 
it  has  acquired  a  large  value,  and  those  who  might  desire  to  use  it 
would  pay  him  a  large  rent  for  permission  so  to  do. 

The  earth  is  a  great  machine  given  to  man  to  be  fashioned  to  his 
purpose.  The  more  he  works  it,  the  better  it  feeds  him,  because 
each  step  is  but  preparatory  to  a  new  one  more  productive  than 
the  last — requiring  less  labour  and  yielding  larger  return.  The 
labour  of  clearing  is  great,  yet  the  return  is  small.  The  earth  is 
covered  with  stumps,  and  filled  with  roots.  With  each  year  the 
roots  decay,  and  the  ground  becomes  enriched,  while  the  labour  of 
ploughing  is  diminished.  At  length,  the  stumps  disappear,  and 
the  return  is  doubled,  while  the  labour  is  less  by  one-half  than  at 
first.  To  forward  this  process  the  owner  has  done  nothing  but 
crop  the  ground,  nature  having  done  the  rest.  The  aid  he  thus 
obtains  from  her  yields  him  as  much  food  as  in  the  outset  was 
obtained  by  the  labour  of  felling  the  trees.  This,  however,  is  not 
all.  The  surplus  thus  yielded  has  given  him  means  of  improving 
the  poorer  lands,  by  furnishing  manure  with  which  to  enrich  them, 
and  thus  has  he  trebled  his  original  return  without  further  labour; 
for  that  which  he  saves  in  working  the  new  soils  suffices  to  carry 
the  manure  to  the  older  ones.  He  is  obtaining  a  daily  increased 
power  over  the  various  treasures  of  the  earth. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  45 

With  every  operation  connected  with  the  fashioning  of  the  earth, 
the  result  is  the  same.  The  first  step  is,  invariably,  the  most 
costly  one,  and  the  least  productive.  The  first  drain  commences 
near  the  stream,  where  the  labour  is  heaviest.  It  frees  from  water 
but  a  few  acres.  A  little  higher,  the  same  quantity  of  labour, 
profiting  by  what  has  been  already  done,  frees  twice  the  number. 
Again  the  number  is  doubled ;  and  now  the  most  perfect  system 
of  thorough  drainage  may  be  established  with  less  labour  than  was 
at  first  required  for  one  of  the  most  imperfect  kind.  To  bring  the 
lime  into  connection  with  the  clay,  upon  fifty  acres,  is  lighter 
labour  than  was  the  clearing  of  a  single  one,  yet  the  process  doubles 
the  return  for  each  acre  of  fifty.  The  man  who  needs  a  little  fuel 
for  his  own  use,  expends  much  labour  in  opening  the  neighbouring 
vein  of  coal ;  but  to  enlarge  this,  so  as  to  double  the  product,  is  a 
work  of  comparatively  small  labour.  To  sink  a  shaft  to  the  first 
vein  below  the  surface,  and  erect  a  steam-engine,  are  expensive 
operations ;  but  these  once  accomplished,  every  future  step  becomes 
more  productive,  while  less  costly.  To  sink  to  the  next  vein 
below,  and  to  tunnel  to  another,  are  trifles  in  comparison  with  the 
first,  yet  each  furnishes  a  return  equally  large.  The  first  line  of 
railroad  runs  by  houses  and  towns  occupied  by  two  or  three  hun 
dred  thousand  persons.  Half  a  dozen  little  branches,  costing 
together  far  less  labour  than  the  first,  bring  into  connection  with  it 
half  a  million,  or  perhaps  a  million.  The  trade  increases,  and  a 
second  track,  a  third,  or  a  fourth,  may  be  required.  The  original 
one  facilitates  the  passage  of  the  materials  and  the  removal  of  the 
obstructions,  and  three  new  ones  may  now  be  made  with  less  labour 
than  was  at  first  required  for  a  single  one. 

All  labour  thus  expended  in  fashioning  the  great  machine  is  but 
the  prelude  to  the  application  of  further  labour,  with  still  increased 
returns.  With  each  such  application,  wages  rise,  and  hence  it  is 
that  portions  of  the  machine,  as  it  exists,  invariably  exchange, 
when  brought  to  market,  for  far  less  labour  than  they  have  cost. 
There  is  thus  a  steady  decline  of  the  value  of  capital  in  labour,  and 
a  daily  increase  in  the  power  of  labour  over  capital,  and  with  each 
step  in  this  direction  man  becomes  more  free.  The  man  who 


46  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

cultivated  the  thin  soils  was  happy  to  obtain  a  hundred  bushels  for 
his  year's  work.  With  the  progress  of  himself  and  his  neighbour 
down  the  hill  into  the  more  fertile  soils,  wages  have  risen,  and 
two  hundred  bushels  are  now  required.  His  farm  will  yield  a 
thousand  bushels  ;  but  it  requires  the  labour  of  four  men,  who 
must  have  two  hundred  bushels  each,  and  the  surplus  is  but  two 
hundred  bushels.  At  twenty  years'  purchase  this  gives  a  capital 
of  four  thousand  bushels,  or  the  equivalent  of  twenty  years'  wages; 
whereas  it  has  cost,  in  the  labour  of  himself,  his  sons,  and  his 
assistants,  the  equivalent  of  a  hundred  years  of  labour,  or  perhaps 
far  more.  During  all  this  time,  however,  it  has  fed  and  clothed 
them  all,  and  the  farm  has  been  produced  by  the  insensible  con 
tributions  made  from  year  to  year,  unthought  of  and  unfelt. 

It  has  become  worth  twenty  years'  wages,  because  its  owner  has 
for  years  taken  from  it  a  thousand  bushels  annually ;  but  when  it 
had  lain  for  centuries  accumulating  wealth  it  was  worth  nothing. 
Such  is  the  case  with  the  earth  everywhere.  The  more  that  is  taken 
from  it  the  more  there  is  to  be  returned,  and  the  greater  our  power 
to  draw  upon  it.  When  the  coal-mines  of  England  were  untouched, 
they  were  valueless.  Now  their  value  is  almost  countless;  yet  the 
land  contains  abundant  supplies  for  thousands  of  years.  Iron  ore, 
a  century  since,  was  a  drug,  and  leases  were  granted  at  almost 
nominal  rents.  Now,  such  leases  are  deemed  equivalent  to  the 
possession  of  large  fortunes,  notwithstanding  the  great  quantities 
that  have  been  removed,  although  the  amount  of  ore  now  known 
to  exist  is  probably  fifty  times  greater  than  it  was  then. 

The  earth  is  the  sole  producer.  From  her  man  receives  the  corn 
and  the  cotton-wool,  and  all  that  he  can  do  is  to  change  them  in 
their  form,  or  in  their  place.  The  first  he  may  convert  into  bread, 
and  the  last  into  cloth,  and  both  may  be  transported  to  distant 
places,  but  there  his  power  ends.  He  can  make  no  addition  to  their 
quantity.  A  part  of  his  labour  is  applied  to  the  preparation  and 
improvement  of  the  great  machine  of  production,  and  this  produces 
changes  that  are  permanent.  The  drain,  once  cut,  remains  a  drain; 
and  the  limestone,  once  reduced  to  lime,  never  again  becomes 
limestone.  It  passes  into  the  food  of  man  and  animals,  and  ever 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  47 

after  takes  its  part  in  the  same  round  with  the  clay  with  which  it 
has  been  incorporated.  The  iron  rusts  and  gradually  passes  into 
soil,  to  take  its  part  with  the  clay  and  the  lime.  That  portion  of 
his  labour  gives  him  wages  while  preparing  the  machine  for  greater 
future  production.  That  other  portion  which  he  expends  on  fa 
shioning  and  exchanging  the  products  of  the  machine,  produces 
temporary  results  and  gives  him  wages  alone.  Whatever  tends  to 
diminish  the  quantity  of  labour  required  for  the  production  of  food 
tends  to  enable  him  to  give  more  to  the  preparation  of  machinery 
required  for  the  fashioning  and  exchanging  of  the  products ;  and 
that  machinery  in  its  turn  tends  to  augment  the  quantity  that  may 
be  given  to  increasing  the  amount  of  products,  and  to  preparing 
the  great  machine ;  and  thus,  while  increasing  the  present  return 
to  labour,  preparing  for  a  future  further  increase. 

The  first  poor  cultivator  obtains  a  hundred  bushels  for  his  year's 
wages.  To  pound  this  between  two  stones  requires  many  days  of 
labour,  and  the  work  is  not  half  done.  Had  he  a  mill  in  the 
neighbourhood  he  would  have  better  flour,  and  he  would  have 
almost  the  whole  of  those  days  to  bestow  upon  his  land.  He  pulls 
up  his  grain.  Had  he  a  scythe,  he  would  have  more  time  for  the 
preparation  of  the  machine  of  production.  He  loses  his  axe,  and 
it  requires  days  of  himself  and  his  horse  on  the  road,  to  obtain 
another.  His  machine  loses  the  time  and  the  manure,  both  of 
which  would  have  been  saved  had  the  axe-maker  been  at  hand. 
The  real  advantage  derived  from  the  mill  and  the  scythe,  and  from 
the  proximity  of  the  axe-maker,  consists  simply  in  the  power  which 
they  afford  him  to  devote  his  labour  more  and  more  to  the  prepara 
tion  of  the  great  machine  of  production,  and  such  is  the  case  with 
all  the  machinery  of  conversion  and  exchange.  The  plough 
enables  him  to  do  as  much  in  one  day  as  with  a  spade  he  could  do 
in  five.  He  saves  four  days  for  drainage.  The  steam-engine 
drains  as  much  as,  without  it,  could  be  drained  by  thousands  of 
days  of  labour.  He  has  more  leisure  to  marl  or  lime  his  land. 
The  more  he  can  extract  from  his  property  the  greater  is  its  value, 
because  every  thing  he  takes  is,  by  the  very  act  of  taking  it,  fa 
shioned  to  aid  further  production.  The  machine,  therefore,  improves 


43  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

by  use,  whereas  spades,  and  ploughs,  and  steam-engines,  and  all 
other  of  the  instruments  used  by  man,  are  but  the  various  forms  into 
which  he  fashions  parts  of  the  great  original  machine,  to  disappear 
in  the  act  of  being  used  \  as  much  so  as  food,  though  not  so 
rapidly.  The  earth  is  the  great  labour-savings'  bank,  and  the 
value  to  man  of  all  other  machines  is  in  the  direct  ratio  of  their  tend 
ency  to  aid  him  in  increasing  his  deposites  in  that  only  bank  whose 
dividends  are  perpetually  increasing,  while  its  capital  is  perpetually 
doubling.  That  it  may  continue  for  ever  so  to  do,  all  that  it  asks 
is  that  it  shall  receive  back  the  refuse  of  its  produce,  the  manure ; 
and  that  it  may  do  so,  the  consumer  and  the  producer  must  take 
their  places  by  each  other.  That  done,  every  change  that  is 
effected  becomes  permanent,  and  tends  to  facilitate  other  and 
greater  changes.  The  whole  business  of  the  farmer  consists  in 
making  and  improving  soils,  and  the  earth  rewards  him  for  his 
kindness  by  giving  him  more  and  more  food  the  more  attention 
he  bestows  upon  her.  All  that  he  receives  from  her  must  be  re 
garded  as  a  loan,  and  when  he  fails  to  pay  his  debts,  she  starves 
him  out. 

The  absolute  necessity  for  returning  to  the  land  the  manure 
yielded  by  its  products  is  so  generally  admitted  that  it  would  ap 
pear  scarcely  necessary  to  do  more  than  state  the  fact;  for  every 
land-owner  knows  that  when  he  grants  the  lease  of  a  farm,  one  of 
the  conditions  he  desires  to  insert  is,  that  all  the  hay  that  is  made 
shall  be  fed  upon  the  land,  and  that  manure  shall  be  purchased  to 
supply  the  waste  resulting  from  the  sale  of  corn  or  flax  from  off 
the  land.  In  order,  however,  that  it  may  be  so  supplied,  it  is  in 
dispensable  that  the  place  of  consumption  shall  not  be  far  distant 
from  the  place  of  production,  as  otherwise  the  cost  of  transporta 
tion  will  be  greater  than  the  value  of  the  manure.  In  a  recent 
work  on  the  agriculture  of  Mecklenburgh,  it  is  -stated  that  a 
quantity  of  grain  that  would  be  worth  close  to  market  fifteen  hun 
dred  dollars  would  be  worth  nothing  at  a  distance  of  fifty  German, 
or  about  two  hundred  English  miles,  from  it,  as  the  whole  value 
would  be  absorbed  in  the  cost  of  transporting  the  grain  to  market 
and  the  manure  from  market — and  that  the  manure  which  close  to 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  49 

the  town  would  be  worth  five  dollars  to  the  farmer  would  be  worth 
nothing  at  a  distance  of  4f  German,  or  19  English  miles  from  it — 
and  that  thus  the  whole  question  of  the  value  of  land  and  the  wealth 
of  its  owner  was  dependent  upon  its  distance  from  the  place  at, 
which  its  products  could  be  exchanged.  At  a  greater  distance 
than  28  German,  or  112  English  miles,  in  Mecklenburgh,  the  land 
ceases  to  yield  rent,  because  it  cannot  be  cultivated  without  loss. 
As  we  approach  the  place  of  exchange  the  value  of  land  increases, 
from  the  simultaneous  action  of  two  causes  :  First,  a  greater  variety 
of  commodities  can  be  cultivated,  and  the  advantage  resulting  from 
a  rotation  of  crops  is  well  known.  At  a  distance,  the  farmer  can 
raise  only  those  of  which  the  earth  yields  but  little,  and  which  are 
valuable  in  proportion  to  their  little  bulk — as,  for  instance,  wheat  or 
cotton ;  but  near  the  place  of  exchange  he  may  raise  potatoes,  turnips, 
cabbages,  and  hay,  of  which  the  bulk  is  great  in  proportion  to  the 
value.  Second,  the  cost  of  returning  the  manure  to  the  land  in 
creases  as  the  value  of  the  products  of  land  diminishes  with  the  in 
crease  of  distance ;  and  from  the  combination  of  these  two  causes, 
land  in  Mecklenburgh  that  would  be  worth,  if  close  to  the  town 
or  city,  an  annual  rent  of  29,808  dollars,  would  be  worth  at  a  dis 
tance  of  but  4  German,  or  16  English,  miles,  only  7,467  dollars. 

We  see  thus  how  great  is  the  tendency  to  the  growth  of  wealth 
as  men  are  enabled  more  and  more  to  combine  their  exertions  with 
those  of  their  fellow-men,  consuming  on  or  near  the  land  the  products 
of  the  land,  and  enabling  the  farmer,  not  only  to  repair  readily  the 
exhaustion  caused  by  each  successive  crop,  but  also  to  call  to  his  aid 
the  services  of  the  chemist  in  the  preparation  of  artificial  manures, 
as  well  as  to  call  into  activity  the  mineral  ones  by  which  he  is 
almost  everywhere  surrounded.  We  see,  too,  how  much  it  must 
be  opposed  to  the  interests  of  every  community  to  have  its  products 
exported  in  their  rude  state,  and  thus  to  have  its  land  exhausted. 
The  same  author  from  whom  the  above  quotations  have  been  made 
informs  us  that  when  the  manure  is  not  returned  to  the  land  the 
yield  must  diminish  from  year  to  year,  until  at  length  it  will  not 
be  more  than  one-fourth  of  what  it  had  originally  been:  and  this  is 
in  accordance  with  all  observation. 

6 


50  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

The  natural  tendency  of  the  loom  and  the  anvil  to. seek  to  take 
their  place  by  the  side  of  the  plough  and  harrow,  is  thus  exhibited 
by  ADAM  SMITH  : — 

"  An  inland  country,  naturally  fertile  and  easily  cultivated,  pro 
duces  a  great  surplus  of  provisions  beyond  what  is  necessary  for 
maintaining  the  cultivators ;  and  on  account  of  the  expense  of  land 
carriage,  and  inconveniency  of  river  navigation,  it  may  frequently  be 
difficult  to  send  this  surplus  abroad.  Abundance,  therefore,  renders 
provisions  cheap,  and  encourages  a  great  number  of  workmen  to  settle 
in  the  neighbourhood,  who  find  that  their  industry  can  there  procure 
them  more  of  the  necessaries  and  conveniences  of  life  than  in  other 
places.  They  work  up  the  materials  of  manufacture  which  the  land 
produces,  and  exchange  their  finished  work,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing, 
the  price  of  it,  for  more  materials  and  provisions.  They  give  a  new 
value  to  the  surplus  part  of  the  rude  produce,  by  saving  the  expense  of 
carrying  it  to  the  waterside,  or  to  some  distant  market;  and  they  furnish 
the  cultivators  with  something  in  exchange  for  it,  that  is  either  useful 
or  agreeable  to  them,  upon  easier  terms  than  they  could  have  obtained 
it  before.  The  cultivators  get  a  better  price  for  their  surplus  produce,  and 
can  purchase  cheaper  other  conveniences  which  they  have  occasion  for. 
They  are  thus  both  encouraged  and  enabled  to  increase  this  surplus 
produce  by  a  further  improvement  and  better  cultivation  of  the  land ; 
and  as  the  fertility  of  the  land  has  given  birth  to  the  manufacture,  so  the 
progress  of  the  manufacture  reacts  upon  the  land,  and  increases  still 
further  its  fertility.  The  manufacturers  first  supply  the  neighbour 
hood,  and  afterward,  as  their  work  improves  and  refines,  more  distant 
markets.  For  though  neither  the  rude  produce,  nor  even  the  coarse 
manufacture,  could,  without  the  greatest  difficulty,  support  the  expense  of 
a  considerable  land  carriage,  the  refined  and  improved  manufacture  easily 
may.  In  a  small  bulk  it  frequently  contains  the  price  of  a  great 
quantity  of  the  raw  produce.  A  piece  of  fine  cloth,  for  example,  which 
weighs  only  eighty  pounds,  contains  in  it  the  price,  not  only  of  eighty 
pounds  of  wool,  but  sometimes  of  several  thousand  weight  of  corn,  the 
maintenance  of  the  different  working  people,  and  of  their  immediate 
employers.  The  corn  which  could  with  difficulty  have  been  carried  abroad  in 
its  own  shape,  is  in  this  manner  virtually  exported  in  that  of  the  complete 
manufacture,  and  may  easily  be  sent  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the  world." 

Again : 

"  The  greater  the  number  and  revenue  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
town,  the  more  extensive  is  the  market  which  it  affords  to  those  of  the 
country ;  and  the  more  extensive  that  market,  it  is  always  the  more 
advantageous  to  a  great  number.  The  corn  which  grows  within  a 
mile  of  the  town,  sells  there  for  the  same  price  with  that  which  comes 
from  twenty  miles  distance.  But  the  price  of  the  latter  must,  gene 
rally,  not  only  pay  the  expense  of  raising  it  and  bringing  it  to  market, 
but  afford,  too,  the  ordinary  profits  of  agriculture  to  the  farmer.  The 
proprietors  and  cultivators  of  the  country,  therefore,  which  lies  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  town,  over  and  above  the  ordinary  profits  of 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  51 

agriculture,  gain,  in  the  price  of  what  they  sell,  the  whole  value  of  the 
carriage  of  the  like  produce  that  is  brought  from  more  distant  parts ; 
and  they  save,  besides,  the  whole  value  of  this  carriage  in  the  price 
of  what  they  buy.  Compare  the  cultivation  of  the  lands  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  any  considerable  town,  with  that  of  those  which  lie  at 
some  distance  from  it,  and  you  will  easily  satisfy  yourself  how  much 
the  country  is  benefited  by  the  commerce  of  the  town." 

These  views  are  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  facts.  Th*, 
labourer  rejoices  when  the  market  for  his  labour  is  brought  to  his 
door  by  the  erection  of  a  mill  or  a  furnace,  or  the  construction  of 
a  road.  The  farmer  rejoices  in  the  opening  of  a  market  for  labour 
at  his  door  giving  him  a  market  for  his  food.  His  laud  rejoices  in 
the  home  consumption  of  the  products  it  has  yielded,  for  its  owner 
is  thereby  enabled  to  return  to  it  the  refuse  of  its  product  in  the 
form  of  manure.  The  planter  rejoices  in  the  erection  of  a  mill  in 
his  neighbourhood,  giving  him  a  market  for  his  cotton  and  his 
food.  The  parent  rejoices  when  a  market  for  their  labour  enables 
his  sons  and  his  daughters  to  supply  themselves  with  food  and 
clothing.  Every  one  rejoices  in  the  growth  of  a  home  market  for 
labour  and  its  products,  for  trade  is  then  increasing  daily  and 
rapidly ;  and  every  one  mourns  the  diminution  of  the  home  market, 
for  it  is  one  the  deficiency  of  which  cannot  be  supplied. 

With  each  step  in  this  direction  man  becomes  more  and  more  free 
as  land  becomes  more  valuable  and  labour  becomes  more  produc 
tive,  and  as  the  land  becomes  more  divided.  The  effect  of  this  upon 
both  the  man  and  the  land  is  thus  exhibited  by  Dr.  Smith  : — 

"A  small  proprietor,  who  knows  every  part  of  his  little  terri 
tory,  views  it  with  all  the  affection  which  property,  especially  small 
property,  naturally  inspires,  and  who  upon  that  account  takes 
pleasure  not  only  in  cultivating,  but  in  adorning  it,  is  generally  of  all 
improvers  the  most  industrious,  the  most  intelligent,  and  the  most 
successful," 

The  tendency  of  the  land  to  become  divided  as  wealth  and  popu 
lation  increase  will  be  obvious  to  the  reader  on  an  examination  of 
the  facts  of  daily  occurrence  in  and  near  a  growing  town  or  city; 
and  the  contrary  tendency  to  the  consolidation  of  land  in  few  hauds 
may  be  seen  in  the  neighbourhood  of  all  declining  towns  or  cities, 
and  throughout  all  declining  states.* 

*  The  land  of  England  itself  has  become  and  is  becoming  more  consolidated, 
the  cause  of  which  will  be  shown  in  a  future  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

HOW  LABOUR   ACQUIRES   VALUE   AND    MAN   BECOMES    FREE. 

THE  proximity  of  the  market  enables  the  farmer  not  only  to 
enrich  his  land  and  to  obtain  from  it  far  more  than  he  could  other 
wise  do,  but  it  also  produces  a  demand  for  many  things  that  would 
otherwise  be  wasted.  In  the  West,  men  set  no  value  upon  straw, 
and  in  almost  every  part  of  this  country  the  waste  arising  out  of 
the  absence  of  a  market  for  any  commodities  but  those  which  can 
be  carried  to  a  distance,  must  strike  every  traveller.  Close  to  the 
town  or  city,  almost  every  thing  has  some  value.  So  too  with 
labour,  the  value  of  which,  like  that  of  land,  tends  to  increase  with 
every  increase  in  the  facility  of  exchanging  its  products. 

The  solitary  settler  has  to  occupy  the  spots  that,  with  his  rude 
machinery,  he  can  cultivate.  Having  neither  horse  nor  cart,  he 
carries  home  his  crop  upon  his  shoulders,  as  is  now  done  in  many 
parts  of  India.  He  carries  a  hide  to  the  place  of  exchange,  distant, 
perhaps,  fifty  miles,  to  obtain  for  it  leather,  or  shoes.  Population, 
increases,  and  roads  are  made.  The  fertile  soils  are  cultivated. 
The  store  and  the  mill  come  nearer  to  him,  and  he  obtains  shoes 
and  flour  with  the  use  of  less  machinery  of  exchange.  He  has 
more  leisure  for  the  improvement  of  his  land,  and  the  re 
turns  to  labour  increase.  More  people  now  obtain  food  from  the 
same  surface,  and  new  places  of  exchange  appear.  The  wool  is,  on 
the  spot,  converted  into  cloth,  and  he  exchanges  directly  with 
the  clothier.  The  saw-mill  is  at  hand,  and  he  exchanges  with  the 
sawyer.  The  tanner  gives  him  leather  for  his  hides,  and  the  paper- 
maker  gives  him  paper  for  his  rags.  With  each  of  these  changes 
he  has  more  and  more  of  both  time  and  manure  to  devote  to  the 
preparation  of  the  great  food-making  machine,  and  with  each  year 
the  returns  are  larger.  His  poiver  to  command  the  use  of  the 
machinery  of  exchange  increases,  but  his  necessity  therefor  dimi- 


DOMESTIC   AND    FdtlEIGN.  53 

nishes,  for  with  each  there  is  an  increasing  tendency  toward  having 
the  consumer  placed  side  by  side  with  the  producer,  and  with  each 
he  can  devote  more  and  more  of  his  time  and  mind  to  the  business 
of  fashioning  the  great  machine  to  which  he  is  indebted  for  food 
and  clothing ;  and  thus  the  increase  of  a  consuming  population  is 
essential  to  the  progress  of  production. 

Diversification  of  employments,  resulting  from  combination  of 
action,  thus  enables  men  to  economize  labour  and  to  increase  pro 
duction.  Increased  production,  on  the  other  hand,  makes  a  demand 
for  labour.  The  more  wheat  raised  and  the  more  cloth  made,  the 
more  there  will  be  to  give  in  exchange  for  labour,  the  greater 
will  be  the  number  of  persons  seeking  for  labourers,  and  the  greater 
will  be  the  power  of  men  to  determine  for  themselves  the  mode  in 
which  they  will  employ  their  time  or  their  talents.  If,  therefore, 
we  desire  to  see  men  advance  in  freedom,  we  must  endeavour  to 
increase  the  productive  power;  and  that,  as  we  see,  grows  with  the 
growth  of  the  power  to  improve  the  land,  while  it  diminishes  with 
every  diminution  in  the  power  to  return  to  the  land  the  manure 
yielded  by  its  products.  In  purely  agricultural  countries  there  is 
little  demand  for  labour,  and  it  always  tends  to  diminish,  as  may 
be  proved  by  any  reader  of  this  volume  who  may  chance  to  occupy  a 
purely  agricultural  neighbourhood.  Let  him  look  around  him,  and 
he  will,  without  difficulty,  find  hundreds  of  men,  and  hundreds  of 
women  and  children,  wasting  more  time  than  would,  if  properly  em 
ployed,  purchase  twice  the  clothing  and  twice  the  machinery  of  pro 
duction  they  are  now  enabled  to  obtain.  Why,  however,  he  will  pro 
bably  ask,  is  it  that  they  do  so  waste  it  ?  Because  there  is  no  demand 
for  it,  except  in  agriculture ;  and  when  that  is  the  case,  there  must 
necessarily  be  great  waste  of  time.  At  one  season  of  the  year  the 
farm  requires  much  labour,  while  at  another  it  needs  but  little ; 
and  if  its  neighbours  are  all  farmers,  they  are  all  in  the  same 
situation.  If  the  weather  is  fit  for  ploughing,  they  and  their 
horses  and  men  are  all  employed.  If  it  is  not,  they  are  all  idle 
In  winter  they  have  all  of  them  little  to  do ;  in  harvest-time  they 
are  all  overrun  with  work ;  and  crops  frequently  perish  on  the 
ground  for  want  of  the  aid  required  for  making  them.  Now,  it 

5* 


54  TH$    SLAVE    TRADE, 

would  seem  to  be  quite  clear  that  if  there  existed  some  other  mode 
of  employment  that  would  find  a  demand  for  the  surplus  labour  of 
the  neighbourhood,  all  would  be  benefited.  The  man  who  had  a 
day's  labour  to  sell  could  sell  it,  and,  with  the  proceeds  of  the 
labour  of  a  very  few  days,  now  wasted,  could  purchase  clothing 
for  his  children,  if,  indeed,  the  labour  of  those  children,  now  also 
wasted,  did  not  more  than  pay  for  all  the  clothing,  not  only  of 
themselves,  but  of  his  wife  and  himself. 

In  order  that  the  reader  may  see  clearly  how  this  state  of 
things  affects  all  labourers,  even  those  who  are  employed,  we  must 
now  ask  him  to  examine  with  us  the  manner  in  which  the  prices 
of  all  commodities  are  affected  by  excess  of  supply  over  demand, 
or  of  demand  over  supply.  It  is  well  known  to  every  farmer,  that 
when  the  crop  of  peaches,  or  of  potatoes,  is,  in  even  a  very  small 
degree,  in  excess  of  the  regular  demand,  the  existence  of  that  small 
surplus  so  far  diminishes  the  price  that  the  larger  crop  will  not 
yield  as  much  as  a  much  smaller  one  would  have  done.  It  is  also 
known  to  them  that  when  the  crop  is  a  little  less  than  is  required 
to  supply  the  demand,  the  advance  in  price  is  large,  and  the  farmer 
then  grows  rich.  In  this  latter  case  the  purchasers  are  looking  for 
the  sellers,  whereas  in  the  former  one  the  sellers  have  to  seek  the 
buyers.  Now,  labour  is  a  commodity  that  some  desire  to  sell,  and 
that  others  desire  to  buy,  precisely  as  is  the  case  with  potatoes  j 
but  it  has  this  disadvantage  when  compared  with  any  other  com 
modity,  that  it  is  less  easily  transferred  from  the  place  where  it 
exists  to  that  at  which  it  is  needed,  and  that  the  loss  resulting 
from  the  absence  of  demand  on  the  spot  is  greater  than  in  refer 
ence  to  any  other  commodity  whatsoever.  The  man  who  raises  a 
hundred  bushels  of  peaches,  of  which  only  seventy  are  needed  at 
home,  can  send  the  remainder  to  a  distance  of  a  hundred  or  a  thou 
sand  miles,  and  the  loss  he  sustains  is  only  that  which  results  from 
the  fact  that  the  price  of  the  whole  is  determined  by  what  he  can 
obtain  for  the  surplus  bushels,  burdened  as  they  are  with  heavy 
cost  of  transportation,  that  he  must  lose ;  for  the  man  that  must  go 
to  a  distant  market  must  always  pay  the  expense  of  getting  there. 
This  is  a  heavy  loss  certainly,  but  it  is  trivial  when  compared  with 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  55 

that  sustained  by  him  who  has  labour  to  sell,  because  that,  like 
other  very  perishable  commodities,  cannot  be  carried  to  another 
market,  and  must  be  ivasted.  If  he  has  two  spare  hours  a  day  to 
sell,  he  finds  that  they  waste  themselves  in  the  very  act  of  seeking 
a  distant  market,  and  his  children  may  go  in  rags,  or  even  suffer 
from  hunger,  because  of  his  inability  to  find  a  purchaser  for  the 
only  commodity  he  has  to  sell.  So,  too,  with  the  man  who  has 
days,  weeks,  or  months  of  labour  for  which  he  desires  to  find  a 
purchaser.  Unwilling  to  leave  bis  wife  and  his  children,  to  go  to  a 
distance,  he  remains  to  be  a  constant  weight  upon  the  labour  market, 
and  must  continue  so  to  remain  until  there  shall  arise  increased 
competition  for  the  purchase  of  labour.  It  is  within  the  knowledge 
of  every  one  who  reads  this,  whether  he  be  shoemaker,  hatter, 
tailor,  printer,  brickmaker,  stonemason,  or  labourer,  that  a  very 
few  unemployed  men  in  his  own  pursuit  keep  down  the  wages  of 
all  shoemakers,  all  hatters,  all  tailors,  or  printers ;  whereas,  wages 
rise  when  there  is  a  demand  for  a  few  more  than  are  at  hand. 
The  reasoi^for  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  difficulty  of  transferring 
labour  from  the  place  at  which  it  exists  to  that  at  which  it  is 
needed ;  and  it  is  to  that  we  have  to  attribute  the  fact  that  the 
tendency  to  depression  in  the  wages  of  all  labour  is  so  very  great 
when  there  is  even  a  very  small  excess  of  supply,  and  the  tendency 
to  elevation  so  great  when  there  is  even  a  very  small  excess  of  de 
mand.  Men  starve  in  Ireland  for  want  of  employment,  and  yet  the 
distance  between  them  and  the  people  who  here  earn  a  dollar  a  day, 
is  one  that  could  be  overcome  at  the  expense  of  fifteen  or  twenty  dol 
lars.  Wages  may  be  high  in  one  part  of  the  Union  and  low  in  another, 
and  yet  thousands  must  remain  to  work  at  low  ones,  because  of  the 
difficulty  of  transporting  themselves,  their  wives,  and  their  families, 
to  the  places  at  which  their  services  are  needed.  Every  such  man 
tends  to  keep  down  the  wages  of  all  other  men  who  have  labour  to 
sell,  and  therefore  every  man  is  interested  in  having  all  other  men 
fully  employed,  and  to  have  the  demand  grow  faster  than  the 
supply.  This  is  the  best  state  of  things  for  all,  capitalists  and 
labourers  j  whereas,  to  have  the  supply  in  excess  of  the  demand  is 
injurious  to  all,  employers  and  employed.  All  profit  by  increase 


56  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

in  the  competition  for  the  purchase  of  labour,  and  all  suffer  from 
increased  competition  for  the  sale  of  it. 

We  had  occasion,  but  a  little  while  since,  to  visit  a  factory  in 
which  were  employed  two  hundred  females  of  various  ages,  from 
fourteen  to  twenty,  who  were  earning,  on  an  average,  three  dollars 
per  week,  making  a  total  of  six  hundred  dollars  per  week,  or 
thirty  thousand  dollars  a  year;  or  as  much  as  would  buy  five 
hundred  thousand  yards  of  cotton  cloth.  Now  supposing  these 
two  hundred  females  to  represent  one  hundred  families,  it  would 
follow  that  their  labour  produced  five  thousand  yards  of  cloth 
per  family,  being  probably  three  times  as  much  in  value  as 
the  total  consumption  of  clothing  by  all  its  members,  from  the 
parent  down  to  the  infant  child. 

Let  us  now  suppose  this  factory  closed ;  what  then  would  be  the 
value  of  the  labour  of  these  girls,  few  of  whom  have  strength  for 
field-work,  even  if  our  habits  of  thought  permitted  that  it  should 
be  so  employed  ?  It  would  be  almost  nothing,  for  they  could  do 
little  except  house-work,  and  the  only  effect  of  sendingithem  home 
would  be  that,  whereas  one  person,  fully  employed,  performs  now 
the  labour  of  the  house,  it  would  henceforth  be  divided  between 
two  or  three,  all  of  whom  would  gradually  lose  the  habit  of  industry 
they  have  been  acquiring.  The  direct  effect  of  this  would  be  a 
diminution  in  the  demand  for  female  labour,  and  a  diminution  of 
its  reward.  While  the  factory  continues  in  operation  there  is  com 
petition  for  the  purchase  of  such  labour.  The  parent  desires  to 
retain  at  least  one  child.  A  neighbour  desires  to  hire  another,  and 
the  factory  also  desires  one.  To  supply  these  demands  requires 
all  the  females  of  the  neighbourhood  capable  of  working  and  not 
provided  with  families  of  their  own,  and  thus  those  who  are  will 
ing  to  -work  have  the  choice  of  employers  and  employment;  while 
the  competition  for  the  purchase  of  their  services  tends  to  raise  the 
rate  of  wages.  If,  now,  in  the  existing  state  of  things,  another 
factory  weie  established  in  the  same  neighbourhood,  requiring  a 
hundred  or  a  hundred  and  fifty  more  females,  the  effect  would  be  to 
establish  increased  competition  for  the  purchase  of  labour,  attended 
by  increased  power  of  choice  on  the  part  of  the  labourer,  and  in- 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  57 

creased  reward  of  labour—  and  it  is  in  this  increased  power  of  choice 
that  freedom  consists.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the  factories  were 
closed,  the  reverse  effect  would  be  produced,  the  competition  for 
the  purchase  of  labour  being  diminished,  with  corresponding  dimi 
nution  of  th«  power  of  choice  on  the  part  of  the  labourer,  diminu 
tion  in  his  compensation,  and  diminution  of  freedom. 

What  is  true  with  regard  to  the  females  of  this  neighbourhood 
is  equally  true  with  regard  to  the  men,  women,  and  children  of  the 
world.  Wherever  there  exists  competition  for  the  purchase  of 
labour,  there  the  labourer  has  his  choice  among  employers,  and  the 
latter  are  not  only  required  to  pay  higher  wages,  but  they  are  also 
required  to  treat  their  workmen  and  workwomen  with  the  considera 
tion  that  is  due  to  fellow-beings  equal  in  rights  with  them 
selves  :  but  wherever  there  is  not  competition  for  the  purchase  of 
labour,  the  labourer  is  compelled  to  work  for  any  who  are  willing 
to  employ  him,  and  to  receive  at  the  hands  of  his  employer  low 
wages  and  the  treatment  of  a  slave,  for  slave  he  is.  Here  is  a 
plain  and  simple  proposition,  the  proof  of  which  every  reader 
can  test  for  himself.  If  he  lives  in  a  neighbourhood  in  which 
there  exists  competition  for  the  purchase  of  labour,  he  knows  that 
he  can  act  as  becomes  a  freeman  in  determining  for  whom  he  will 
work,  and  the  price  he  is  willing  to  receive  for  his  services ;  but 
if  he  lives  in  one  in  which  there  is  competition  for  the  sale  of 
labour,  he  knows  well  that  it  does  not  rest  with  him  to  determine 
either  where  he  will  work  or  what  shall  be  his  wages. 

Where  all  are  farmers,  there  can  be  no  competition  for  the  pur 
chase  of  labour,  except  for  a  few  days  in  harvest;  but  there  must  be 
competition  for  the  sale  of  labour  during  all  the  rest  of  the  year. 
Of  course,  where  all  are  farmers  or  planters,  the  man  who  has 
labour  to  sell  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  few  who  desire  to  buy  it,  as  is 
seen  in  our  Southern  States,  where  the  labourer  is  a  slave ;  and  in 
Ireland,  where  his  condition  is  far  worse  than  that  of  the  slaves  of 
the  South ;  and  in  India,  where  men  sell  themselves  for  long  terms 
of  years  to  labour  in  the  West  Indies ;  and  in  Portugal,  where 
competition  for  the  purchase  of  labour  has  no  existence.  Where, 
on  the  contrary,  there  is  a  diversification  of  employments,  there  is 


58  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

! 

a  steady  improvement  in  the  condition  of  men,  as  they  more  and 

more  acquire  the  power  to  determine  for  themselves  for  whom  they 
will  work  and  what  shall  be  their  reward,  as  is  seen  in  the  rapid 
improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  people  of  France,  Belgium,  and 
Germany,  and  especially  of  those  of  Russia,  where  competition  for 
the  purchase  of  labour  is  increasing  with  wonderful  rapidity.  Di 
versification  of  employment  is  absolutely  necessary  to  produce 
competition  for  the  purchase  of  labour.  The  shoemaker  does  not 
need  to  purchase  shoes,  nor  does  the  miner  need  to  buy  coal,  any 
more  than  the  farmer  needs  to  buy  wheat  or  potatoes.  Bring  them 
together,  and  combine  with  them  the  hatter,  the  tanner,  the  cotton- 
spinner,  the  maker  of  woollen  cloth,  and  the  smelter  and  roller  of 
iron,  and  each  of  them  becomes  a  competitor  for  the  purchase  of 
the  labour,  or  the  products  of  the  labour,  of  all  the  others,  and  the 
wages  of  all  rise  with  the  increase  of  competition. 

In  order  that  labour  may  be  productive,  it  must  be  aided  by 
machinery.  The  farmer  could  do  little  with  his  hands,  but  when 
aided  by  the  plough  and  the  harrow  he  may  raise  much  wheat  and 
corn.  He  could  carry  little  on  his  shoulders,  but  he  may  trans 
port  much  when  aided  by  a  horse  and  wagon,  and  still  more  when 
aided  by  a  locomotive  engine  or  a  ship.  He  could  convert  little 
grain  into  flour  when  provided  only  with  a  pestle  and  mortar,  but 
he  may  do  much  when  provided  with  .a  mill.  His  wife  could  con 
vert  little  cotton  into  cloth  when  provided  only  with  a  spinning- 
wheel  and  hand-loom,  but  her  labour  becomes  highly  productive 
when  aided  by  the  spinning-jenny  and  the  power-loom.  The  more 
her  labours  and  those  of  her  husband  are  thus  aided  the  larger  will 
be  the  quantity  of  grain  produced,  the  more  speedily  will  it  be  con 
verted  into  flour,  the  more  readily  will  it  be  carried  to  market,  the 
larger  will  be  the  quantity  of  cloth  for  which  it  will  exchange,  the 
greater  will  be  the  quantity  of  food  and  clothing  to  be  divided 
among  the  labourers,  and  the  greater  will  be  the  facility  on  the 
part  of  the  labourer  to  acquire  machinery  of  his  own,  and  to  be 
come  his  own  employer,  and  thus  to  increase  that  diversification  in 
the  employment  of  labour  which  tends  to  increase  the  competition 
for  its  purchase. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  59 

It  will  next,  we  think,  be  quite  clear  to  the  reader  that  the  nearer 
the  grist-mill  is  to  the  farm,  the  less  will  be  the  labour  required 
for  converting  the  wheat  into  flour,  the  more  will  be  the  labour 
that  may  be  given  to  the  improvement  of  the  farm,  and  the  greater 
will  be  the  power  of  the  farmer  to  purchase  shoes,  hats,  coats, 
ploughs,  or  harrows,  and  thus  to  create  a  demand  for  labour. 
Equally  clear  will  it  be  that  the  nearer  he  can  bring  the  hatter,  the 
shoemaker,  and  the  tailor,  the  maker  of  ploughs  and  harrows,  the 
less  will  be  the  loss  of  labour  in  exchanging  his  wheat  for  their 
commodities,  and  the  greater  will  be  his  power  to  purchase  books 
and  newspapers,  to  educate  his  children,  and  thus  to  introduce  new 
varieties  in  the  demand  for  labour ;  and  each  such  new  variety  in 
the  demand  for  that  commodity  tends  to  raise  the  wages  of  those 
engaged  in  all  other  pursuits.  If  there  be  none  but  farmers,  all 
are  seeking  employment  on  a  farm.  Open  a  carpenter's  or  a 
blacksmith's  shop,  and  the  men  employed  therein  will  cease  to  be 
competitors  for  farm  labour,  and  wages  will  tend  to  rise.  Open  a 
mine,  or  quarry  stone  and  build  a  mill,  and  here  will  be  a  new 
competition  for  labour  that  will  tend  to  produce  a  rise  in  the 
wages  of  all  labourers.  Build  a  dozen  mills,  and  men  will  be  re 
quired  to  get  out  timber  and  stone,  and  to  make  spindles,  looms, 
and  steam-engines ;  and  when  the  mills  are  completed,  the  demand 
for  labour  will  withdraw  hundreds  of  men  that  would  be  otherwise 
competitors  for  employment  in  the  ploughing  of  fields,  the  making 
of  shoes  or  coats,  and  hundreds  of  women  that  would  otherwise  be 
seeking  to  employ  themselves  in  binding  shoes  or  making  shirts. 
Competition  for  the  purchase  of  labour  grows,  therefore,  with  every 
increase  in  the  diversification  of  employment,  with  constant  tendency 
to  increase  in  the  reward  of  labour.  It  declines  with  every  dimi 
nution  in  the  modes  of  employing  labour,  with  steady  tendency  to 
decline  in  wages. 

If  the  reader  will  now  trace  the  course  of  man  toward  freedom, 
in  the  various  nations  of  the  world,  he  will  see  that  his  progress 
has  been  in  the  ratio  of  the  growth  of  towns  at  which  he  and  his 
neighbours  could  exchange  the  products  of  their  labour,  and  that 
it  has  declined  as  the  near  towns  have  given  way  to  the  distant 


60 

cities.  The  people  of  Attica  did  not  need  to  go  abroad  to  effect 
their  exchanges,  and  therefore  they  became  rich  and  free;  whereas 
the  Spartans,  who  tolerated  nothing  but  agriculture,  remained 
poor  and  surrounded  by  hosts  of  slaves.  The  towns  and  cities  of 
Italy  gave  value  to  the  land  by  which  they  were  surrounded,  and 
freedom  to  the  people  by  whom  that  land  was  cultivated.  So  was 
it  in  Holland,  and  in  Belgium,  and  so  again  in  England.  In  each 
and  all  of  these  land  increased  in  value  with  every  increase  in  the 
facility  of  exchanging  its  products  for  clothing  and  machinery,  and 
with  each  step  in  this  direction  men  were  enabled  more  readily  to 
maintain  and  to  increase  the  power  of  the  land,  and  to  permit  larger 
numbers  to  obtain  increased  supplies  from  the  same  surfaces. 
Association  thus  increased  the  power  of  accumulating  wealth,  and 
wealth  thus  diminished  in  its  power  over  labour,  while  with  aug 
mented  numbers  the  people  everywhere  found  an  increase  in  their 
power  to  assert  and  to  defend  their  rights.  Having  reflected  on 
the  facts  presented  to  him  in  the  pages  of  history,  and  having 
satisfied  himself  that  they  are  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  views 
here  presented,  the  reader  will  perhaps  find  himself  disposed  to 
admit  the  correctness  of  the  following  propositions  : — 

I.  That  the  nearer  the  market  the  less  must  be  the  cost  to  the 
farmer  for  transporting  his  products  to  market  and  for  bringing  back 
the  manure  to  maintain  and  improve  his  land. 

II.  That  the  nearer  the  market  the  less  must  be  the  loss  of 
labour  in  going  to  market,  and  the  greater  the  quantity  that  can 
be  given  to  the  improvement  of  the  land. 

III.  That  the  more  the  labour  and  manure  that  can  be  given 
to  land,  the  larger  will  be  the  product  and  the  greater  its  value. 

IV.  That  the  larger  the  quantity  of  commodities  produced  the 
greater  will  be  the  demand  for  labour  to  be  employed  in  converting 
them  into  forms  that  fit  them  for  consumption,  and  the  larger  the 
quantity  to  be  divided  among  the  labourers. 

V.  That  the  greater  the  competition  for  the  purchase  of  labour 
the  greater  must  be   the  tendency  toward  the   freedom   of  the 

labourer. 

i 

VI.  That  the  freedom  of  mi*o  in  thought,  speech,  action,  and 


DOMESTIC    AXD    FOREIGN.  61 

trade,  tends  thus  to  keep  pace  with  increase  in  the  habit  of  associa 
tion  among  men,  and  increase  in  the  value  of  land;— and 

VII.  That  the  interests  of  the  labourer  and  land-owner  are  thus 
in  perfect  harmony  with  each  other,  the  one  becoming  free  as  the 
other  becomes  rich. 

Equally  correct  will  be  found  the  following  propositions  : — 

I.  That  the  more  distant  the  market  the  greater  must  be  the 
cost  to  the  farmer  for  transporting  his  products  to  market,  the 
greater  must  be  the  difficulty  .of  obtaining  manure,  and  the  more 
must  his  land  be  impoverished. 

II.  That  the  more  distant  the  market  the  greater  must  be  the 
loss  of  labour  on  the  road,  and  the  less  the  quantity  that  can  be 
given  to  the  improvement  of  the  land. 

III.  That  the  less  the  labour  and  manure  applied  to  the  land 
the  less  must  be  the  product,  and  the  less*  its  value. 

IV.  That  the  longer  this  process  is  continued  the  poorer  must 
become  the  land,  until  at  length  it  ceases  to  have  value,  and  must 
be  abandoned. 

V.  That  the  smaller  the  quantity  of  commodities  produced  the 
less  must  be  the  demand  for  labour  to  be  employed  in  their  con 
version,  and  the  less  the  quantity  to  be  divided  among  the  labourers. 

VI.  That  the  less  the  competition  for  the  purchase  of  labour  the 
less  must  be  the  power  of  the  labourer  to  determine  for  whom  he 
will  work,  or  what  must  be  his  reward,  and  the  greater  the  ten 
dency  toward  his  becoming  enslaved. 

VII.  That  the  tendency  toward  slavery  tends  thus  to  keep  pace 
with  the  decline  in  the  habit  of  association  among  men,  and  the 
loss  of  value  in  land ; — and 

VIII.  That  thus  the  labourer  and  land-owner  suffer  together, 
the  one  becoming  enslaved  as  the  other  becomes  impoverished. 

If  evidence  be  desired  of  the  correctness  of  these  propositions,  it 
may  found  in  the  history  of  Egypt,  Greece,  Rome,  Mexico,  and  of 
every  other  country  that  has  declined  in  wealth  and  population. 


62  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HOW  MAN  PASSES  FROM  WEALTH  AND  FREEDOM  TOWARD 
POVERTY  AND  SLAVERY. 

THE  views  that  have  thus  been  presented  are  entirely  in  harmony 
with  those  of  the  illustrious  author  of  "  The  Wealth  of  Nations." 
"  In  seeking  for  employment  to  a  capital/'  says  Dr.  Smith, 

"Manufactures  are,  upon  equal  or  nearly  equal  profits,  naturally 
preferred  to  foreign  commerce,  for  the  same  reason  that  agriculture  is 
naturally  preferred  to  manufactures.  As  the  capital  of  the  landlord 
or  farmer  is  more  secure  than  that  of  the  manufacturer,  so  the  capital 
of  the  manufacturer,  being  at  all  times  more  within  his  view  and  com 
mand,  is  more  secure  than  that  of  the  foreign  merchant.  In  every 
period,  indeed,  of  every  society,  the  surplus  part  both  of  the  rude  and 
manufactured  produce,  or  that  for  which  there  is  no  demand  at  home, 
must  be  sent  abroad,  in  order  to  be  exchanged  for  something  for  which 
there  is  some  demand  at  home.  But  whether  the  capital  which  carries 
this  surplus  produce  abroad  be  a  foreign  or  domestic  one,  is  of  little 
importance." 

It  is  thus,  in  his  estimation,  of  small  importance  whether  the 
capital  engaged  in  the  work  of  transportation  be  foreign  or  domes 
tic — the  operations  most  essential  to  the  comfort  and  improvement 
of  man  being,  first,  the  production,  and  next,  the  conversion  of  the 
products  of  the  land,  by  men  occupying  towns  and  cities  placed 
among  the  producers.  The  nearer  the  market  the  less  must  be,  as 
he  clearly  saw,  the  loss  of  transportation,  and  the  greater  the  value 
of  the  land.  If  the  number  or  the  capital  of  those  markets  were 
insufficient  for  the  conversion  of  all  the  rude  produce  of  the  earth, 
there  would  then  be  "  considerable  advantage"  to  be  derived  from 
the  export  of  the  surplus  by  the  aid  of  foreign  capital,  thus  leaving 
"  the  whole  stock  of  the  society"  to  be  employed  at  home  "  to  more 
useful  purpose."  These  views  are  certainly  widely  different  from 
those  of  modern  economists,  who  see  in  tables  of  imports  and  ex 
ports  the  only  criterion  of  the  condition  of  society.  Commerce,  by 
which  is  meant  exchanges  with  distant  people,  is  regarded  as  the 
sole  measure  of  the  prosperity  of  a  nation ;  and  yet  every  man  is 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  63 

rejoiced  when  the  market  for  his  products  is  brought  home  to  him, 
and  he  is  thereby  enabled  to  economize  transportation  and  enrich 
his  land  by  returning  to  it  the  elements  of  which  those  products 
had  been  composed. 

•"  According  to  the  natural  course  of  things,"  savs  Dr.  Smith,  "  the 
greater  part  of  the  capital  of  every  growing  society  is,  first,  directed  to 
agriculture,  afterward  to  manufactures,  and,  last  of  all,  to  foreign 
commerce." 

This,  says  he,  is  in  accordance  with  natural  laws.  As  subsist 
ence  precedes  luxuries,  so  must  the  production  of  commodities 
precede  their  conversion  or  their  exchange, 

"Necessity  imposes,"  he  continues,  "  that  order  of  things"  which  "  is 
in  every  country  promoted  by  the  natural  inclinations  of  man.  If 
human  institutions  had  never  thwarted  thos«  natural  inclinations,  the 
towns  could  nowhere  have  increased  beyond  what  the  improvement 
and  cultivation  of  the  territory  in  which  they  were  situated  could  sup 
port;  till  such  time,  at  least,  as  the  whole  of  that  territory  was  com 
pletely  cultivated  and  improved.  Upon  equal,  or  nearly  equal  profits, 
most  men  will  choose  to  employ  their  capitals  rather  in  the  improve 
ment  and  cultivation  of  land,  than  either  in  manufactures  or  in  foreign 
trade.  The  man  who  employs  his  capital  in  land,  has  it  more  under 
his  view  and  command;  and  his  fortune  is  much  less  liable  to  accidents 
than  that  of  the  trader,  who  is  obliged  frequently  to  commit  it,  not 
only  to  the  winds  and  the  waves,  but  to  the  more  uncertain  elements 
of  human  folly  and  injustice,  by  giving  great  credits,  in  distant  coun 
tries,  to  men  with  whose  character  and  situation  he  can  seldom  be 
thoroughly  acquainted.  The  capital  of  the  landlord,  on  the  contrary, 
which  is  fixed  in  the  improvement  of  his  land,  seems  to  be  as  well  se 
cured  as  the  nature  of  human  affairs  can  admit  of.  The  beauty  of 
the  country,  besides  the  pleasures  of  a  country  life,  the  tranquillity  of 
mind  which  it  promises,  and,  wherever  the  injustice  of  human  laws 
does  not  disturb  it,  the  independency  which  it  really  affords,  have 
charms  that,  more  or  less,  attract  everybody;  and  as  to  cultivate  the 
ground  was  the  original  destination  of  man,  so,  in  every  stage  of  his 
existence,  he  seems  to  retain  a  predilection  for  this  primitive  employ 
ment. 

"Without  the  assistance  of  some  artificers,  indeed,  the  cultivation  of 
land  cannot  be  carried  on,  but  with  great  inconveniency  and  continual 
interruption.  Smiths,  carpenters,  wheelwrights  and  ploughwrights, 
masons  and  bricklayers,  tanners,  shoemakers,  and  tailors,  are  people 
whose  service  the  farmer  has  frequent  occasion  for.  Such  artificers, 
too,  stand  occasionally  in  need  of  the  assistance  of  one  another;  and  as 
their  residence  is  not,  like  that  of  the  farmer,  necessarily  tied  down  to 
a  precise  spot,  they  naturally  settle  in  the  neighbourhood  of  one 
another,  and  thus  form  a  small  town  or  village.  The  butcher,  the 
brewer,  and  the  baker  soon  join  them,  together  with  many  other  arti 
ficers  and  retailers,  necessary  or  useful  for  supplying  their  occasional 


64  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

wants,  and  who  contribute  still  further  to  augment  the  town.    The  in 
habitants  of  the  town  and  those  of  the  country  are  mutually  the  ser 
vants  of  one  another.     The  town  is  a  continual  fair  or  market,  to 
which  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  resort,  in  order  to  exchange  their 
rude  for  manufactured  produce.     It  is  this  commerce  which  supplies 
the  inhabitants  of  the  town,  both  with  the  materials  of  their  work  and 
the  means  of  their  subsistence.     The  quantity  of  the  finished  work 
which  they  sell  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  country,  necessarily  regulates 
the  quantity  of  the  materials  and  provisions  which  they  buy.    Neither 
their  employment  nor  subsistence,  therefore,  can  augment,  but  in  pro 
portion  to  the  augmentation  of  the  demand  from  the  country  for 
finished  work;  and  this  demand  can  augment  only  in  proportion  to  the 
extension  of  improvement  and  cultivation.     Had  human  institutions, 
.  therefore,  never  disturbed  the  natural  course  of  things,  the  progressive 
//  wealth  and  increase  of  the  towns  would,  in  every  political  society,  be 
W  consequential,  and  in  proportion  to  the  improvement  and  cultivation 
I   of  the  territory  or  country." 

The  demand  on  the  artisan  "can  augment  only  in  proportion  to 
the  extension  of  improvement  and  cultivation."  Nothing  can  be 
more  true.  The  interests  of  the  farmer  and  the  mechanic  are  in  per 
fect  harmony  with  each  other.  The  one  needs  a  market  for  his 
products,  and  the  nearer  the  market  the  greater  must  be  the  produce 
of  his  land,  because  of  his  increased  power  to  carry  back  to  it  the 
manure.  The  other  needs  a  market  for  his  labour,  and  the  richer 
the  land  around  him  the  greater  will  be  the  quantity  of  products 
to  be  offered  in  exchange  for  labour,  and  the  greater  his  freedom  to 
determine  for  himself  for  whom  he  will  work  and  what  shall  be  his 
wages.  The  combination  of  effort  between  the  labourer  in  the 
workshop  and  the  labourer  on  the  farm  thus  gives  value  to  land, 
and  the  more  rapid  the  growth  of  the  value  of  land  the  greater  has 
everywhere  been  the  tendency  to  the  freedom  of  man. 

These  views  were  opposed  to  those  then  universally  prevalent. 
"  England's  treasure  in  foreign  trade"  had  become 

"A  fundamental  maxim  in  the  political  economy,  not  of  England 
only,  but  of  all  other  commercial  countries.  The  inland  or  home 
trade,  the  most  important  of  all,  the  trade  in  which  an  equal  capital 
affords  the  greatest  revenue,  and  creates  the  greatest  employment  to 
the  people  of  the  country,  was  considered  as  subsidiary  only  to  foreign 
trade.  It  neither  brought  money  into  the  country,  it  was  said,  nor 
carried  any  out  of  it.  The  country,  therefore,  could  never  become 
richer  or  poorer  by  means  of  it,  except  as  far  as  its  prosperity  or  decay 
might  indirectly  influence  the  state  of  foreign  trade." 

It  was  against  this  error  chiefly  that  Dr.  Smith  cautioned  his 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  65 

countrymen.  He  showed  that  it  had  led,  and  was  leading,  to  mea 
sures  tending  to  disturb  the  natural  course  of  things  in  all  the 
countries  connected  with  England,  and  to  produce  among  them  a 
necessity  for  trade  while  diminishing  the  power  to  maintain  trade. 
"Whatever  tends,"  says  he,  "to  diminish  in  any  country  the  num 
ber  of  artificers  and  manufacturers,  tends  to  diminish  the  home 
market,  the  most  important  of  all  markets,  for  the  rude  produce  of 
the  land,  and  thereby  still  further  to  discourage  agriculture,"  and 
consequently  to  diminish  the  power  of  producing  things  witlf 
which  to  trade.  He  nowhere  refers  to  the  fact  that  any  system 
which  looks  to  compelling  a  nation  to  export  raw  produce,  tends 
necessarily  to  the  impoverishment  of  the  land  and  its  owner,  and 
to  the  diminution  of  the  freedom  of  the  labourer,  and  yet  that 
such  was  the  case  could  scarcely  have  escaped  his  observation.  The 
tendency  of  the  then  existing  English  policy  was,  as  he  showed,  to 
produce  in  various  countries  a  necessity  for  exporting  every  thing 
in  its  rudest  form,  thus  increasing  the  cost  of  transportation,  while 
impoverishing  the  land  and  exhausting  the  people.  The  legislature 
had  been,  he  said,  "  prevailed  upon"  to  prevent  the  establishment  of 
manufactures  in  the  colonies,  "  sometimes  by  high  duties,  and  some 
times  by  absolute  prohibitions."  In  Grenada,  while  a  colony  of 
France,  every  plantation  had  its  own  refinery  of  sugar,  but  on  its 
cession  to  England  they  were  all  abandoned,  and  thus  was  the  number 
of  artisans  diminished,  to  "  the  discouragement  of  agriculture."  The 
course  of  proceeding  relative  to  these  colonies  is  thus  described : — 

"While  Great  Britain  encourages  in  America  the  manufacturing  of 
pig  and  bar  iron,  by  exempting  them  from  duties  to  which  the  like 
commodities  are  subject  when  imported  from  any  other  country,  she 
imposes  an  absolute  prohibition  upon  the  erection  of  steel  furnaces  and 
slit-mills  in  any  of  her  American  plantations.  She  will  not  suffer  her 
colonies  to  work  in  those  more  refined  manufactures,  even  for  their 
own  consumption;  but  insists  upon  their  purchasing  of  her  merchants 
and  manufactures  all  goods  of  this  kind  which  they  have  occa 
sion  for. 

She  prohibits  the  exportation  from  one  province  to  another  by  water, 
and  even  the  carriage  by  land  upon  horseback,  or  in  a  cart,  of  hats,  of 
wools,  and  woollen  goods,  of  the  produce  of  America;  a  regulation  which 
effectually  prevents  the  establishment  of  any  manufacture  of  such  com 
modities  for  distant  sale,  and  confines  the  industry  of  her  colonists  in  this 
way  to  such  coarse  and  household  manufactures  as  a  private  family 

6* 


/I/- 


/Jfa  66  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

/     commonly  makes  for  its  own  use,  or  for  that  of  some  of  its  neighbours 
/     in  the  same  province." 

His  views,  in  regard  to  such  measures,  are  thus  given  : — 

"To  prohibit  a  great  people  from  making  all  they  can  of  every  part 
of  their  OAvn  produce,  or  from  employing  their  stock  and  industry  in  a 
way  that  they  judge  most  advantageous  to  themselves,  is  a  manifest 
violation  of  the  most  sacred  rights  of  mankind." 

Further  to  carry  out  this  view  of  compelling  the  people  of  the 
colonies  to  abstain  from  manufacturing  for  themselves,  and  to  carry 
their  products  to  distant  markets,  to  the  exhaustion  of  the  land  and 
to  the  diminution  of  the  value  of  labour,  bounties  were  paid  on  the 
importation  into  England  of  various  articles  of  raw  produce,  while 
the  export  of  various  raw  materials,  of  artisans,  and  of  machinery, 
was  prohibited.  The  whole  object  of  the  system  was,  he  said,  to 
" raise  up  colonies  of  customers,  a  project,"  he  added,  "fit  only 
for  a  nation  of  shopkeepers."  Indeed,  he  thought  it  "unfit  even 
for  a  nation  of  shopkeepers,"  although  "extremely  fit  for  a  nation 
whose  government  was  influenced  by  shopkeepers."  He  was  there 
fore  entirely  opposed  to  all  such  arrangements  as  the  Metliuen 
treaty,  by  which,  in  consideration  of  obtaining  the  control  of  the 
market  of  Portugal  for  the  sale  of  her  manufactures,  Great  Britain 
agreed  to  give  to  the  wines  of  that  country  great  advantage  over 
those  of  France. 

Against  all  the  errors  of  the  system,  Dr.  Smith,  however,  raised 
in  vain  his  warning  voice.  "England's  treasure"  was,  it  was 
thought,  to  be  found  "in  foreign  trade,"  and  every  measure 
adopted  by  the  government  had  in  view  the  extension  of  that  trade. 
With  each  new  improvement  of  machinery  there  was  a  new  law 
prohibiting  its  export.  The  laws  against  the  export  of  artisans 
were  enforced,  and  a  further  one  prohibited  the  emigration  of  col 
liers.  The  reader  will  readily  see  that  a  law  prohibiting  the  export 
of  cotton  or  woollen  machinery  was  precisely  equivalent  to  a  law 
to  compel  all  the  producers  of  wool  or  cotton  to  seek  the  distant 
market  of  England  if  they  desired  to  convert  their  products  into 
cloth.  The  inventors  of  machinery,  and  the  artisans  who  desired 
to  work  it,  were  thus  deprived  of  freedom  of  action,  in  order  that 
foreigher?  might  be  made  the  slaves  of  those  who  controlled  the 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  *. « 

spinning-jenny,  the  loom,  and  the  steam-engine,  in  whose  hands  it 
was  desired  to  centralize  the  control  of  the  farmers  and  planters  of 
the  world.  England  was  to  be  made  t{  the  workshop  of  the  world," 
although  her  people  had  been  warned  that  the  system  was  not  only 
unnatural,  but  in  the  highest  degree  unjust,  and  even  more  impo 
litic  than  unjust,  because  while  tending  to  expel  capital  and  labour 
from  the  great  and  profitable  home  market,  it  tended  greatly  to 
the  "  discouragement  of  agriculture"  in  the  colonies  and  nations 
subjected  to  the  system,  and  to  prevent  the  natural  increase  of  the 
smaller  and  less  profitable  distant  market  upon  which  she  was  be 
coming  more  and  more  dependent. 

By  degrees  the  tendency  of  the  system  became  obvious.  Boun 
ties  on  the  import  of  wood,  and  wool,  and  flax,  and  other  raw  ma 
terials,  tended  to  "  the  discouragement  of  agriculture"  at  home, 
and  bounties  on  the  export  of  manufactures  tended  to  drive  into 
the  work  of  converting  and  exchanging  the  products  of  other  lands 
the  labour  and  capital  that  would  otherwise  have  been  applied  to 
the  work  of  production  at  home.  The  necessary  consequence  of 
this  was,  that  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  these  raw  materials,  instead 
of  diminishing  with  the  progress  of  population,  tended  to  increase, 
and  then  it  was,  at  the  distance  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  from  the 
date  of  the  publication  of  "  The  Wealth  of  Nations"  that  the  founda 
tion  of  the  new  school  was  laid  by  Mr.  Malthus,  who  taught  that  all 
the  distress  existing  in  the  world  was  the  inevitable  consequence  of 
a  great  law  of  nature,  which  provided  that  food  should  increase  only 
in  arithmetical  progression,  while  population  might  increase  in 
geometrical  progression.  Next  came  Mr.  Ricardo,  who  furnished 
a  law  of  the  occupation  of  the  earth,  showing,  and  conclusively, 
as  he  supposed,  that  the  work  of  cultivation  was  always  commenced 
on  the  rich  soils,  yielding  a  large  return  to  labour,  and  that  as 
population  increased,  men  were  compelled  to  resort  to  others,  each 
in  succession  less  fertile  than  its  predecessor — the  consequence  of 
which  was  that  labour  became  daily  less  productive,  the  power  to 
obtain  food  diminished,  and  the  power  to  demand  rent  increased,  the 
poor  becoming  daily  poorer,  weaker,  and  more  enslaved,  as  the  rich 
became  richer  and  more  powerful.  Next  came  the  elder  Miil, 


68  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

who  showed  that,  in  obedience  to  the  law  thus  propounded  by  Mr. 
Ricardo,  the  return  to  capital  and  labour  applied  to  the  work  of 
cultivation  must  be  "  continually  decreasing/'  and  the  annual  fund 
from  which  savings  are  made,  continually  diminishing.  "The 
difficulty  of  making  savings  is  thus,"  he  adds,  "continually  aug 
mented,  and  at  last  they  must  totally  cease."  He  regarded  it 
therefore  as  certain  that  "wages  would  be  reduced  so  low  that  a 
portion  of  the  population  would  regularly  die  from  the  consequences 
of  want."  In  such  a  state  of  things,  men  sell  themselves,  their 
wives,  or  their  children,  for  mere  food.  "We  see,  thus,  that  the 
modern  British  theory  looks  directly  to  the  enslavement  of  man. 

In  this  manner,  step  by  step,  did  the  British  political  economists 
pass  from  the  school  of  Adam  Smith,  in  which  it  was  taught  that 
agriculture  preceded  manufactures  and  commerce,  the  latter  of  which 
were  useful  to  the  extent  that  they  aided  the  former, — to  that  new 
one  in  which  was,  and  is,  taught,  that  manufactures  and  commerce 
were  the  great  and  profitable  pursuits  of  man,  and  that  agriculture, 
because  of  the  "  constantly  increasing  sterility  of  the  soil,"  was  the 
least  profitable  of  all.  Hence  it  is  that  we  see  England  to  have  been 
steadily  passing  on  in  the  same  direction,  and  devoting  all  her 
energies  to  the  prevention  of  the  establishment,  in  any  country  of 
the  world,  of  markets  in  which  the  raw  produce  of  the  land  could 
be  exchanged  directly  with  the  artisan  for  the  products  of  his 
labour. 

For  a  time  this  prospered,  but  at  length  the  eyes  of  the  world 
were  opened  to  the  fact  that  they  and  their  land  were  being  im 
poverished  as  she  was  being  enriched;  and  that  the  effect  of  the 
system  was  that  of  constituting  herself  sole  buyer  of  the  raw  products 
of  their  labour  and  their  land,  and  sole  seller  of  the  manufactured 
commodities  to  be  given  in  exchange  for  them,  with  power  to  fix 
the  prices  of  both ;  and  thua  that  she  was  really  acting  in  the 
capacity  of  mistress  of  the  world,  with  power  to  impose  taxes  at. 
discretion.  By  degrees,  machinery  and  artisans  were  smuggled 
abroad,  and  new  machinery  was  made,  and  other  nations  turned 
their  attention  more  and  more  to  manufacturing;  and  now  it  be 
came  necessary  to  make  new  exertions  for  the  purpose  of  securing 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  69 

to  England  the  monopoly  she  had  so  long  enjoyed.  To  enable  her 
to  do  this  we  find  her  at  length  throwing  open  her  ports  for  the 
free  admission  of  corn  and  numerous  other  of  the  raw  products  of 
the  earth,  free  from  the  payment  of  any  duty  whatever,  and  thus 
offering  to  the  various  nations  of  the  world  a  bounty  on  the  further 
exhaustion  of  their  land.  The  adoption  of  this  measure  would,  it 
was  supposed,  induce  Prussia,  Austria,  Russia,  and  Denmark,  and 
all  America,  to  devote  themselves  exclusively  to  the  cultivation  of 
the  earth,  abandoning  all  attempts  at  the  creation  of  nearer  places 
of  exchange;  and  thus  that  all  the  world  outside  of  England  would 
become  producers  of  raw  materials  to  be  carried  to  that  single  and 
distant  market,  there  to  be  consumed  or  converted,  and  the  refuse 
thereof  to  be  deposited  on  the  land  of  England.  That  such  was 
the  object  of  this  measure  was  admitted  by  all.  It  was  announced 
as  a  boon  to  the  agriculturists  of  the  world.  How  far  it  was  cal 
culated  to  be  so,  the  reader  may  judge,  after  satisfying  himself 
of  the  truth  of  the  following  propositions  : — 

I.  That  if  there  is  to  be  but  one  place  of  exchange  or  manufac 
ture  for  the  world,  all  the  rest  of  the  people  of  the  world  must 
limit  themselves  to  agriculture. 

II.  That  this  necessarily  implies  the  absence  of  towns,  or  local 
places  of  exchange,  and  a  necessity  for  resorting  to  a  place  of  ex 
change  far  distant. 

III.  That  the  distance  of  the  place  of  consumption  from  the 
place  of  production  forbids  the  possibility  of  returning  to  the  land 
any  of  the  manure  yielded  by  its  products. 

IV.  That  this  in  turn  implies  the  exhaustion  of  the  land  and 
the  impoverishment  of  its  owner. 

V.  That  the  impoverishment  of  the  land  renders  necessary  a  re 
moval  to  new  and  more  distant  lands. 

VI.  That  this  renders  necessary  a  larger  amount  of  transporta 
tion,  while  the  impoverishment  of  the  farmer  increases  the  difficulty 
of  making  roads. 

VII.  That  the   increased  distance  of  the  market  produces  a 
steadily  increased  necessity  for  limiting  the  work  of  cultivation  to 
the  production  of  those  commodities  which  can  be  obtained  from 


70  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

high  and  dry  lands,  and  that  the  quantity  of  products  tends  there 
fore  to  diminish  with  the  increased  distance  from  market. 

VIII.  That  with  each  step  in  the  progress  of  exhausting  the 
land,  men  are  compelled  to  separate  more  widely  from  each  other, 
and  that  there  is  therefore  a  steady  diminution  in  the  power  of 
association  for  the  making  of  roads,  or  the  establishment  of  schools, 
and  that  the  small  towns,  or  near  places  of  exchange,  tend  gradually 
toward  depopulation  and  ruin. 

IX.  That  the  more  men  separate  from  each  other  the  less  is  the 
power  to  procure  machinery,  and  the  greater  the  necessity  for  cul 
tivating  the  poorest  soils,  even  though  surrounded  by  lead,  iron, 
and  copper  ore,  coal,  lime,  and  all  other  of  the  elements  of  which 
machinery  is  composed. 

X.  That  with  the  diminished  power  of  association,  children  grow 
up  uneducated,  and  men  and  women  become  rude  and  barbarous. 

XI.  That  the  power  to  apply  labour  productively  tends  steadily 
to  diminish,  and  that  women,  in  default  of  other  employment,  are 
forced  to  resort  to  the  field,  and  to  become  slaves  to  their  fathers, 
husbands,  and  brothers. 

XII.  That  the  power  to  accumulate  capital  tends  likewise  to 
diminish — that  land  becomes  from  day  to  day  more  consolidated — 
and  that  man  sinks  gradually  into  the  condition  of  a   slave   to 
the  landed  'or  other  capitalist. 

XIII.  That  with  this  steady  passage  of  man  from  the  state  of 
a  freeman  to  that  of  a  slave,  he  has  steadily  less  to  sell,  and  can 
therefore  purchase  less;  and  that  thus  the  only  effect  of  a  policy 
which  compels  the  impoverishment  of  the  land  and  its  owner  is  to 
destroy  the    customer,  who,  under  a  different  system  of  policy, 
might  have  become  a  larger  purchaser  from  year  to  year. 

That  the  object  of  the  present  English  policy  is  that  of  con 
verting  all  the  nations  of  the  world  into  purely  agricultural  com 
munities  will  not  be  denied ;  but  as  it  may  be  doubted  if  the  effects 
would  be  such  as  are  here  described,  it  is  proposed  now  to 
inquire  into  the  movement  of  some  of  the  non-manufacturing  com 
munities  of  the  world,  with  a  view  to  determine  if  the  facts  observed 
are  in  correspondence  with  those  that,  reasoning  a  priori,  we  should 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  71 

be  led  to  expect.  Before  entering  upon  this  examination,  the 
reader  is,  however,  requested  to  peruse  the  following  extracts  from 
"Gee  on  Trade,"  in  which  is  described  the  former  colonial  system, 
and  afterward  the  extract  from  a  recent  despatch  of  Lord  Grey, 
late  Colonial  Secretary,  with  a  view  to  satisfy  himself  how  perfectly 
identical  are  the  objects  now  sought  to  be  attained  with  those  de 
sired  by  the  statesmen  of  the  last  century,  and  denounced  by 
Adam  Smith. 

JOSHUA  GEE — 1750. 

First — "  Manufactures  in  American  colonies  should  be  discouraged, 
prohibited. " 

"Great  Britain  with  its  dependencies  is  doubtless  as  well  able  to 
subsist  within  itself  as  any  nation  in  Europe.  We  have  an  enterprising 
people,  fit  for  all  the  arts  of  peace  or  war.  We  have  provisions  in 
abundance,  and  those  of  the  best  sort,  and  we  are  able  to  raise  suffi 
cient  for  double  the  number  of  inhabitants.  We  have  the  very  best 
materials  for  clothing,  and  want  nothing  either  for  use  or  for  luxury, 
but  what  we  have  at  home,  or  might  have  from  our  colonies  ;  so  that 
we  might  make  such  an  intercourse  of  trade  among  ourselves,  or  be 
tween  us  and  them,  as  would  maintain  a  vast  navigation.  But,  we 
ought  always  to  keep  a  watchful  eye  over  our  colonies,  to  restrain  them 
from  setting  up  any  of  the  manufactures  which  are  carried  on  in  Great 
Britain;  and  any  such  attempts  should  be  crushed  in  the  beginning, 
for  if  they  are  suffered  to  grow  up  to  maturity  it  will  be  difficult  to 
suppress  them." 

"Our  colonies  are  much  in  the  same  state  as  Ireland  was  in  when 
they  began  the  woollen  manufactory,  and  as  their  numbers  increase, 
will  fall  upon  manufactures  for  clothing  themselves,  if  due  care  be 
not  taken  to  find  employment  for  them  in  raising  such  productions 
as  may  enable  them  to  furnish  themselves  with  all  the  necessaries 
from  us." 

"  I  should,  therefore,  think  it  worthy  the  care  of  the  government  to 
endeavour  by  all  possible  means  to  encourage  them  in  the  raising  of 
silk,  hemp,  flax,  iron,  (only pig,  to  be  hammered  in  England,)  potash, 
&c.,  by  giving  them  competent  bounties  in  the  beginning,  and  sending 
over  skilful  and  judicious  persons,  at  the  public  charge,  to  assist  and 
instruct  them  in  the  most  proper  methods  of  management,  which  in 
my  apprehension  would  lay  a  foundation  for  establishing  the  most 
profitable  trade  of  any  we  have.  And  considering  the  commanding 
situation  of  our  colonies  along  the  seacoast,  the  great  convenience 
of  navigable  rivers  in  all  of  them,  the  cheapness  of  land,  and  the  easi 
ness  of  raising  provisions,  great  numbers  of  people  would  transport 
themselves  thither  to  settle  upon  such  improvements.  Now,  as  people 
have  been  filled  with  fears  that  the  colonies,  if  encouraged  to  raise 
rough  materials,  would  set  up  for  themselves,  a  little  regulation  would 
be  necessary;  and  as  they  will  have  the  providing  rough  materials  for 


72  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

themselves,  a  little  regulation  would  remove  all  those  jealousies  out  of 
the  way.  They  have  never  thrown  or  wove  any  silk,  as  yet,  that  we 
have  heard  of, — therefore,  if  a  law  was  made  prohibiting  the  use  of  any 
throwing  mill,  of  doubling  or  throstling  silk,  with  any  machine  what 
ever,  they  would  then  send  it  to  us  raw.  And  as  they  will  have  the 
Providing  rough  materials  to  themselves,  so  shall  we  have  the  manu- 
icturing  of  them.  If  encouragement  be  given  for  raising  hemp,  flax, 
&c.,  doubtless  they  will  soon  begin  to  manufacture,  if  not  prevented. 
Therefore,  to  stop  the  progress  of  any  such  manufacture,  it  is  proposed 
that  no  weaver  have  liberty  to  set  up  any  looms,  without  first  re 
gistering  at  an  office  kept  for  that  purpose,  and  the  name  and  place  of 
abode  of  any  journeyman  that  shall  work  for  him.  But  if  any  par 
ticular  inhabitant  shall  be  inclined  to  have  any  linen  or  woollen  made 
of  their  own  spinning,  they  should  not  be  abridged  of  the  same  liberty 
that  they  now  make  use  of,  namely  to  have  a  weaver  who  shall  be 
licensed  by  the  Governor,  and  have  it  wrought  up  for  the  use  of  the 
family,  but  not  to  be  sold  to  any  person  in  a  private  manner,  nor  ex 
posed  to  any  market  or  fair,  upon  pain  of  forfeiture."  "That  all  slit 
ting  mills  and  engines  for  drawing  wire,  or  weaving  stockings,  be  put 
down."  "  That  all  negroes  shall  be  prohibited  from  weaving  either 
linen  or  woollen,  or  spinning  or  combing  of  wool,  or  working  at  any 
manufacture  of  iron,  further  than  making  it  into  pig  or  bar  iron. 
That  they  also  be  prohibited  from  manufacturing  hats,  stockings,  or 
leather  of  any  kind.  This  limitation  will  not  abridge  the  planters  of 
any  liberty  they  now  enjoy — on  the  contrary,  it  will  then  turn  their 
industry  to  promoting  and  raising  those  rough  materials." 

Second — "The  advantages  to  Great  Britain  from  keeping  the  colo 
nies  dependent  on  her  for  their  essential  supplies." 

"If  we  examine  into  the  circumstances  of  the  inhabitants  of  our 
plantations,  and  our  own,  it  will  appear  that  not  one-fourth  part  of 
their  product  redounds  to  their  own  profit,  for  out  of  all  that  comes  here, 
they  only  carry  back  clothing  and  other  accommodations  for  their  families, 
all  of  which  is  of  the  merchandise  and  manufacture  of  this  kingdom." 
"All  these  advantages  we  receive  by  the  plantations,  besides  the  mort 
gages  on  the  planters'  estates  and  the  high  interest  they  pay  us,  which  is 
very  considerable,  and,  therefore,  very  great  care  ought  to  be  taken,  in 
regulating  all  the  affairs  of  the  colonists,  that  the  planters  are  not  put 
under  too  many  difficulties,  but  encouraged  to  go  on  cheerfully." 
"  New  England  and  the  northern  colonies  have  not  commodities  and 
products  enough  to  senc^  us  in  return  for  purchasing  their  necessary 
clothing,  but  are  under  very  great  difficulties  ;  and,  therefore,  any 
ordinary  sort  sell  with  them, — and  when  they  have  grown  out  of  fa 
shion  with  us,  they  are  new-fashioned  enough  for  them." 

LORD  GREY— 1850. 

"If,  as  has  been  alleged  by  the  complainants,  and  as  in  some  in 
stances  would  appear  to  be  the  case,  any  of  the  duties  comprised  in 
the  tariff  have  been  imposed,  not  for  the  purpose  of  revenue,  but  with 
a  view  of  protecting  the  interest  of  the  Canadian  manufacturer,  her 
Majesty's  government  are  clearly  of  opinion  that  such  a  course  is  in- 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  73 

jurious  alike  to  the  interests  of  the  mother  country  and  to  those  of  the 
colony.  Canada  possesses  natural  advantages  for  the  production  of 
articles  which  will  always  exchange  in  the  markets  of  this  country  for 
those  manufactured  goods  of  which  she  stands  in  need.  By  such  ex 
change  she  will  obtain  these  goods  much  more  cheaply  than  she  could 
manufacture  them  for  herself,  and  she  will  secure  an  advantageous 
market  for  the  raw  produce  which  she  is  best  able  to  raise.  On  the 
other  hand,  by  closing  her  markets  against  British  manufactures,  or 
rendering  their  introduction  more  costly,  she  enhances  their  price  to  the 
consumer,  and  by  the  imposition  of  protective  duties,  for  the  purpose 
of  fostering  an  unnatural  trade,  she  gives  a  wrong  direction  to  capital, 
by  withdrawing  it  from  more  profitable  employment,  and  causing  it  to 
be  invested  in  the  manufacture  of  articles  which  might  be  imported  at 
a  cost  below  that  of  production  in  the  colony,  while  at  the  same  time 
she  inflicts  a  blow  on  her  export  trade  by  rendering  her  markets  less 
eligible  to  the  British  customer/'  "If  the  merchant  finds  that  by  ex 
porting  his  goods  to  Canada  they  produce  him  in  return  a  large 
quantity  of  corn,  and  thus  yield  a  greater  profit  than  they  would  if  ex 
ported  to  any  other  country,  he  will  of  course  give  the  preference  to 
Canada.  But  if  by  reason  of  increased  import  duties,  those  goods 
produce  a  diminished  return,  the  result  will  be  either  that  the  Cana 
dian  farmer  must  submit  to  a  proportionate  reduction  in  the  price  of 
his  produce,  or  the  British  manufacturer  must  resort  to  another  market. 
It  is,  therefore,  obvious,  that  it  is  not  less  the  interest  of  Canada  her 
self  than  of  Great  Britain,  that  this  tariff  of  import  duties  should 
undergo  a  careful  revision." 

The  phraseology  of  the  two  is  different,  but  the  object  is  the 
same — that  of  rendering  it  necessary  to  send  all  the  raw  products 
of  the  land  to  a  market  far  distant,  and  thus  depriving  the  farmer 
or  planter  of  the  power  to  return  any  portion  of  the  loan  made  to 
him  by  the  earth,  and  which  she  is  always  willing  to  renew,  on  the 
simple  condition  that  when  the  borrower  has  used  it,  he  shall  return 
to  the  lender  the  elements  of  which  it  had  been  composed. 


74  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 


CHAPTER  IX. 

HOW   SLAVERY   GREW,    AND    HOW   IT   IS    NOW   MAINTAINED,  IN 
THE    WEST   INDIES. 

THE  system  described  in  the  last  chapter  was  fully  carried  out 
in  the  West  India  colonies.     Manufactures  were  so  entirely  inter 
dicted  from  the  date  of  their  coming  under  the  crown  of  Great 
Britain,  that  the  colonists  were  not  permitted  even  to  refine  their 
own  sugar,  and  still  less  to  convert  their  cotton  into  cloth.     The 
necessary  consequence  was  that  women  and  children  could  have 
no  employment  but  that  of  the  field.     This,  of  course,  tended  to 
sink  both  mother  and  child  far  lower  in  the  scale  of  civilization 
than  would  have  been  the  case  had  the  lighter  labour  of  conversion 
been  associated  with  the  more  severe  one  of  production.     The  next 
effect  was,  that  as  all  were  bound  to  remain  producers  of  raw  com 
modities,  there  could  be  no  markets  at  hand,  and  no  exchanges 
could  be  made  except  at  a  distance  of  thousands  of  miles.     Difficul 
ties,  too,  arose  in  regard  to  the  diversification  of  labour,  even  in 
agriculture  itself.     Indigo  was  tried,  but  of  the  price  for  which  it 
sold  in  England  so  large  a  portion  was  absorbed  by  ship-owners, 
commission  merchants,  and  the  government,  that  its  culture  was 
abandoned.     Coffee  was  extensively  introduced,  and  as  it  grows  on 
higher  and  more  salubrious  lands  its  cultivation  would  have  been 
of  great  advantage  to  the  community;  but  here,  as  in  the  case  of 
indigo,  so  small  a  portion  of  the  price  for  which  it  sold  was  received 
by  the  producer  that  its  production  was  about  being  abandoned,  and 
was  saved  only  by  the  government  agreeing  to  reduce  its  claim  to 
a  shilling,  or  twenty-four  cents,  a  pound.     This  amounted  to  about 
a  hundred  and  eighty  dollars  per  acre,  the  estimated  produce  being 
about  750  pounds  of  merchantable  coffee  ;*  and  very  much  of  it 
came  out  of  the  producer — the  poor  negro.     How  enormously  bur 
densome  such  a  tax  must  have  been  may  be  judged  by  the  farmers 

*  Dallas's  History  of  the  Maroons,  vol.  i.  page  c. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  75 

who  feel  now  so  heavily  the  pressure  of  the  malt  duties;  and  it  must 
always  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  West  India  labourers  were  aided 
by  the  most  indifferent  machinery  of  production.  By  degrees  these 
various  taxes  rendered  necessary  the  abandonment  of  all  cultivation 
but  that  of  the  sugar-cane,  being  of  all  others  the  most  destructive 
of  health,  and  as  the  whole  population,  men,  women,  and  children, 
were  limited  to  that  single  pursuit,  we  shall  scarcely  err  in  attri 
buting  to  this  fact  the  great  waste  of  life  recorded  in  a  former 
chapter. 

Commerce,  too,  was  interdicted,  except  with  Great  Britain  and 
her  colonies ;  and  this  led  to  efforts  at  a  smuggling  trade  with  the 
Spanish  possessions  on  the  continent;  but  this  was  brought  to  a 
close  by  the  watchfulness  of  the  ships  of  war.*  Slaves,  however, 
might  be  imported  and  exported,  and  this  traffic  was  carried  on  on 
a  most  extensive  scale,  most  of  the  demand  for  the  Spanish  colonies 
being  supplied  from  the  British  Islands.  In  1775,  however,  the 
colonial  legislature,  desirous  to  prevent  the  excessive  importation 
of  negroes,  imposed  a  duty  of  £  2  per  head,  but  this  was  petitioned 
against  by  the  merchants  of  England,  and  the  home  government 
directed  the  discontinuance  of  the  tax.f  At  this  period  the  annual 
export  of  sugar  is  stated  J  to  have  been  980,346  cwt.,  the  gross 
sales  of  which,  duty  free,  averaged  £1  14s.  8d.  per  cwt.,  making  a 
total  of  £1,699,421, — so  large  a  portion  of  which,  however,  was 
absorbed  by  freight,  commissions,  insurance,  &c.,  that  the  net  pro 
ceeds  of  775  sugar  estates  are  stated  to  have  been  only  £726,992, 
or  less  than  £1000  each.  If  to  the  £973,000  thus  deducted  be 
added  the  share  of  the  government,  (12s.  3c?.  per  cwt.,)  and  the 
further  charges  before  the  sugar  reached  the  consumer,  it  will  be 
seen  that  its  grower  could  not  have  received  more  than  one-fourth 
of  the  price  at  which  it  sold.  The  planter  thus  appears  to  have 
been  little  more  than  a  superintendent  of  slaves,  who  were  worked  for 
the  benefit  of  the  merchants  and  the  government  of  Great  Britain, 
by  whom  was  absorbed  the  lion's  share  of  the  produce  of  their 
labour.  He  was  placed  between  the  slave,  whom  he  was  obliged  to 

*  Macpherson,  vol.  iii.  394.  f  Ibid.  574.  J  Ibid.  vol.  iv.  255. 


76  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

support,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  mortgagee,  the  merchants,  and 
the  government,  whom  he  was  also  obliged  to  support,  on  the  other, 
and  he  could  take  for  himself  only  what  was  left — and  if  the  crop 
proved  large,  and  prices  fell,  he  was  ruined.  The  consequences 
of  this  are  seen  in  the  fact  that  in  twenty  years  following  this 
period,  there  were  sold  for  debt  no  less  than  177  estates,  while  92 
remained  unsold  in  the  hands  of  creditors,  and  55  were  wholly 
abandoned.  Seeing  these  things,  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  under 
stand  the  cause  of  the  extraordinary  waste  of  life  exhibited  in  the 
British  Islands.  The  planter  could  exist,  himself,  only  by  over 
working  his  people;  and  notwithstanding  all  his  efforts,  no  less  than 
324  out  of  775  estates  changed  hands  by  reason  of  failure  in  the 
short  space  of  twenty  years.  Whatever  might  be  his  disposition  to 
improve  the  condition  of  the  labourer,  to  do  so  was  quite  impossible 
while  receiving  for  himself  and  them  so  small  a  portion  of  the  price 
of  his  commodity. 

In  the  early  years  of  the  present  century,  land  had  become  more 
valuable.  The  price  of  sugar  had  risen  about  80  per  cent.,  and  the 
planters  were  gradually  extricating  themselves  from  their  difficul 
ties;  and  a  consequence  of  this  was  seen  in  a  considerable  ameliora 
tion  of  the  condition  of  the  slave,  who  was  now  much  better  fed, 
clothed,  and  otherwise  provided  for.*  Slaves  that  had  been  as 
low  as  £34,  average  price,  had  risen  to  £50,  at  which  the  250,000 
in-the  island  amounted  to  £12,500,000,  and  the  real  and  personal 
property,  exclusive  of  the  slaves,  was  estimated  at  £25, 000,000. f 
How  great,  however,  were  the  difficulties  under  which  the  planters 
still  laboured,  may  be  seen  from  the  following  extract,  which,  long 
as  it  is,  is  given  because  it  illustrates  so  forcibly  the  destructive 
effects  of  the  policy  that  looks  to  the  prevention  of  that  association 
which  results  from  bringing  the  loom  and  the  anvil  to  the  side  of 
plough  and  the  harrow. 

"I  have  now  to  enter  upon  a  painful  part  of  my  task,  a  part  in  which 
I  am  under  the  necessity  of  stating  such  circumstances  as  cannot  but 
reflect  disgrace  on  those  who  give  rise  to  them,  and  from  which  the 

*  Dallas's  History  of  the  Maroons,  vol.  i.  cvii.  f  Ibid.  cv. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  77 

weakness,  I  will  not  use  a  harsher  term,  of  the  legislature,  is  but  too 
apparent.  These  circumstances  arise  from  the  various  modes  of  agency, 
such  as  that  of  the  attorney  of  estates,  mortgagee  in  possession,  receiver 
in  chancery,  &c.  The  first  of  these  characters  requires  a  definition. 
By  the  word  attorney,  in  this  sense,  is  meant  agent;  and  the  duties  an 
nexed  to  his  office  are  so  similar  to  those  of  a  steward  in  England,  that 
were  it  not  for  the  dissimilarity  of  executing  them,  and  the  dignity  at 
tendant  upon  the  former,  I  should  pronounce  them  one  and  the  same, 
But  as  this  colonial  stewardship  is  the  surest  road  to  imperial  fortune, 
men  of  property  and  distinguished  situation  push  eagerly  for  it.  At 
torneys  are  of  two  sorts ;  six  per  cent,  attorneys,  and  salaried  attorneys  ; 
the  profits  of  the  former  arise  from  commissions  of  six  per  cent,  on  all 
the  produce  of  an  estate,  and  various  interior  resources;  the  latter  are 
paid  a  certain  stipend  by  some  unincumbered  proprietors,  who  have 
lately  discovered  that  a  steward  in  Jamaica  may  be  hired  like  a  stew 
ard  m  England,  by  which  several  thousand  pounds  a  year  are  saved, 
and  instead  of  enriching  their  agents,  are  poured  into  their  own  coffers. 
The  office  of  both  is  to  attend  to  the  estates  of  their  employers,  and  to 
all  their  interests  in  the  island,  deputed  to  them  that  the  proprietors 
themselves  may  live  at  home,  that  is  to  say,  in  Europe. 

"Of  all  the  evils  in  the  island  of  Jamaica,  which  call  for  a  remedy,  and 
by  means  of  which  the  most  unjustifiable  practices  are  continued,  the 
first  and  most  crying  is  that  of  the  business  of  a  certain  description  of 
attorneys  of  orphans,  mortgagees  in  possession,  trustees,  executors,  guar 
dians,  and  receivers  under  the  court  of  chancery;  and  these  evils  arise 
in  a  great  measure  from  the  unjust  and  impolitic  law  which  allows  six 
per  cent,  commission  on  the  gross  produce  of  the  estates  under  their 
charge  and  direction.  The  iniquitous  practices,  screened,  if  not  au 
thorized  by  that  law,  have  long  been  too  glaring  to  be  unnoticed ;  and 
attempts  have  been  made  to  reduce  the  commission,  and  to  fix  it  on 
some  more  equitable  principle;  but  unfortunately  there  ha've  always 
been  in  the  House  of  Assembly  too  many  of  its  members  interested  in 
benefits  resulting  from  the  present  law  to  admit  the  adoption  of  the 
measure.  That  the  interest  of  attorneys  is  not  always  the  interest  of 
those  whose  estates  they  hold  is  an  undeniable  fact,  of  which  I  think 
you  will  be  convinced  by  the  time  you  arrive  at  the  conclusion  of  this 
letter.  In  many  instances,  too,  this  superior  collateral  interest  militates 
against  the  happiness  and  amelioration  of  the  state  and  condition  of 
the  slaves,  which  is  now  professed  by  the  colonists  to  be  an  object  of 
their  most  serious  attention ;  and  it  proves  not  unfrequently  the  total 
ruin  of  the  unfortunate  planter,  whose  involved  situation  compels  him 
to  submit  to  the  condition  of  consigning  his  estate  to  the  management 
of  an  attorney  appointed  by  his  creditor,  who  is  generally  his  merchant, 
and  who  throws  the  full  legal  advantages  of  his  debtor's  estate  into 
the  hands  of  his  own  agent  in  the  island,  to  compensate  for  the  econo 
mical  bargain  he  makes  for  the  management  of  his  own  concerns;  a 
practice  common  also  to  trustees,  guardians,  &c.  The  law  allowing 
such  enormous  commissions  for  services  so  inadequate,  is  also  very  de 
fective  in  an  important  point;  for  it  establishes  no  data  for  fixing 
the  charge  of  this  commission,  which  is  never  made  according  to  the 
sales  of  sugar,  for  that  is  not  soon,  if  ever  known  to  the  attorney. 

7* 


78  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

Hence,  in  the  different  accounts,  the  charges  are  estimated  on  sugar  at 
several  prices,  from  205.  per  cwt.  to  45s.,  and  even  50s. ;  and  in  the  same 
books  of  one  and  the  same  attorney,  these  charges  are  found  to  differ 
according  to  his  connection  with  his  employer,  generally  increasing  in 
proportion  to  the  distress  of  the  property  and  of  the  proprietor.  To 
form  some  notion  of  the  advantages  attending  these  appointments,  and 
of  their  injurious  tendency  to  involved  proprietors,  and  even  to  their 
creditors,  let  us  see  what  a  receiver  under  the  court  of  chancery  can 
do.  In  the  first  place,  it  has  not  always  been  the  practice  to  select  him 
from  among  the  inhabitants  in  the  vicinity  of  the  unfortunate  estates, 
or  from  among  the  friends  of  the  proprietor;  he  is  frequently  a  resident 
in  one  of  the  towns,  with  perhaps  as  little  knowledge  of  the  management 
of  an  estate  as  is  possessed  by  the  sweeper  of  the  chancery  office  ;  and  in 
deed  it  would  not  be  inapplicable  to  distinguish  such  receivers  by  the 
appellation  of  chancery-sweepers.  These  gentlemen  seldom  if  ever  see 
the  estates  which  they  are  to  direct,  and  have  no  other  directions  to 
give  than,  in  a  lumping  way,  to  make  as  much  sugar  as  possible,  and 
to  ship  it,  most  likely  to  their  own  correspondents.  Whatever  the  estates 
clear  is  so  much  in  their  hands,  and  of  course  the  more  money  the  better 
for  them;  money  takes  root  in  every  soil,  and  propagates  itself  a  thou 
sand  ways ;  not  a  dollar  of  it  therefore  finds  its  way  into  the  chancery 
chest,  for  the  receiver  having  given  security,  the  treasure  is,  by  a  com 
mon  fiction  in  use,  held  to  be  fully  as  safe  in  his  hands.  While  the 
different  creditors  of  the  estate  are  fighting  the  battle  of  priority,  the 
receiver  continues  to  direct  the  management  of  it,  to  ship  the  crop,  and 
to  take  care  of  the  money.  At  length  a  prior  debt  is  established,  and 
the  creditor  having  gained  the  point,  remains  for  a  time  satisfied;  but 
finding,  though  his  principal  accumulates,  that  he  receives  nothing,  he 
becomes  clamorous  for  a  sale.  This  may  take  place  in  five  or  six  years 
time,  when  all  pretexts  for  delay  are  worn  out,  and  in  the  mean  time 
the  receiver  takes  care  to  have  money,  adequate  to  the  simple  sums  re 
ceived,  turned  over  by  his  consignee  or  merchant  to  another  hand,  his 
banker's,  to  be  ready  to  answer  bills  to  be  drawn  on  his  own  account, 
for  which  he  must  have  a  premium  of  from  twelve  to  seventeen  and  a 
half  per  cent.  The  estate  at  last  is  advertised  for  sale  by  a  master  in 
chancery,  in  consequence  of  an  order  from  the  chancellor.  The  sale, 
however,  is  spun  out  a  year  or  two  longer,  till  the  creditor  or  his  attor 
ney  begins  to  remonstrate  with  the  master :  stipulations  for  an  amicable 
settlement  ensue,  that  is,  for  an  admission  of  the  receiver's  accounts 
such  as  they  may  be,  and  for  time  allowed  him  for  payment  of  the 
mesne  profits  or  balance  in  his  hands ;  which  agreed  to,  the  sale  is  posi 
tively  to  take  place  when  the  next  crop  is  over.  The  sale  then  is  actually 
concluded,  the  accumulations  of  these  annual  funds  go  unperceived  to 
the  further  propagation  of  wealth  for  the  receiver ;  and  the  purchaser, 
who  is  no  other  than  the  prior  creditor,  is  put  in  possession  of  an  estate 
in  ruin,  with  a  gang  of  negroes  dispirited  and  miserable,  who  had  been 
long  sensible  of  their  situation,  conceiving  themselves  belonging  to  nobody, 
and  almost  despairing  of  ever  falling  into  the  hands  of  a  kind  master, 
interested  in  their  welfare  and  happiness.  Let  us  now  turn  to  the 
attorney  of  a  mortgagee  in  possession,  and  see  what  better  he  offers. 
The  debt  of  the  involved  estate  is  due  to  a  man  of  large  property,  or  to 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  79 

a  merchant ;  if  to  the  former,  be  has  a  merchant  to  whom  the  consign 
ment  is  of  considerable  value.  It  is  immaterial  what  the  debt  is,  an 
estate  in  possession  of  a  mortgagee  is  generally  made  to  pay  full  com 
missions  to  the  attorney  employed  for  it.  Injustice  to  all  parties  the 
most  is  to  be  made  of  the  property,  and  it  is  soon  found  that  the  negroes 
upon  it  are  not  equal  to  the  returns  it  is  capable  of  making,  conse 
quently  hired  negroes  are  added  to  the  plantation-gangs,  to  plant,  weed, 
and  ta\e  off  the  crop :  the  works  are  extended,  to  be  adequate  to  the 
proposed  increase ;  more  stock,  more  carts  are  bought,  more  white  peo 
ple  employed.  To  keep  pace  with  these  grand  designs,  the  poor  planta 
tion  negroes  are  of  course  overworked.  What  is  the  result  ?  A  great 
deal  of  sugar  and  rum  is  made,  to  the  credit  as  well  as  profit  of  the 
attorney,  and  by  which  the  merchant  is  benefited,  as  the  consignments 
are  augmented:  but  six  per  cent,  interest  on  the  principal,  six  per 
cent,  on  that  interest  by  compound  arithmetic  become  principal,  six 
per  cent,  commissions,  with  the  contingent  charges  for  labour,  improve 
ments,  stores,  &c.,  absorb  the  whole  produce,  and  the  planter  daily 
sinks  under  an  accumulating  debt,  till  he  is  completely  ruined.  The 
greater  the  distress,  the  more  the  attorney  fattens :  in  a  war,  for  instance, 
a  considerable  additional  benefit  occurs ;  he  becomes  lumber-merchant, 
and  having  the  rum  of  the  estate  at  his  command,  and  perhaps  a  little 
sugar,  though  in  the  latter  article  he  is  usually  restricted,  as  the  dis 
posal  of  it  in  the  island  would  interfere  with  the  loading  of  ships  and 
consignments,  he  purchases  wholesale  cargoes,  and  retails  them  out  to 
the  estate  at  a  large  profit.  Staves  bought  by  the  attorney  at  £18  per 
thousand,  have  been  known  to  be  sold  to  the  estate  for  £45  per  thou 
sand  ;  and  the  cart  belonging  to  the  propeVty  has  carried  the  rum  to 
pay  for  them.  It  is  well  known  that  the  rum  made  upon  an  estate  witt 
seldom  pay  its  contingent  expenses,  and  that  frequently  bills  are  drawn 
on  Great  Britain  to  the  amount  of  one  thousand  pounds,  and  sometimes 
two  thousand  pounds,  for  the  excess  of  the  contingencies  over  and  above 
the  amount  of  the  sale  of  the  rum:  here  the  attorney  finds  another  ave 
nue  of  amassing  for  himself.  Settling  the  excess  from  his  own  means, 
he  appropriates  the  bills  which  it  enabled  him  to  draw  to  the  purchase 
of  the  remainder  of  a  cargo  of  negroes,  after  the  best  have  been  culled 
at  the  rate  of  from  ninety  to  ninety-five  pounds  per  head:  these  inferior 
negroes  he  disposes  of  to  his  dependent  overseers,  jobbers,  doctors, 
tradesmen,  distillers,  and  book-keepers,  at  forty  or  fifty  pounds  a  head 
profit ;  nor  is  it  without  example,  that  the  very  estates  on  the  credit  of 
which  some  of  the  bills  are  drawn,  have  been  supplied  with  negroes  in 
the  same  manner,  and  at  the  same  rate.  This  manoeuvre  indeed  is 
ventured  only  on  estates  of  minors,  whose  trustees  are  merchants  in 
Great  Britain,  ignorant  of  such  practices  ;  or  may  be,  when  they  have 
committed  the  estates  to  the  attorney,  liable  to  the  full  advantages  to 
be  made  of  them,  to  compensate  for  the  moderate  allowance  they  give 
for  the  management  of  their  own  concerns.  An  island  merchant,  or 
according  to  the  West  India  appellation,  storekeeper,  in  great  business, 
told  a  friend  of  mine,  that  he  had  sold  a  cargo  of  mules  at  eighteen 
pounds  per  head  to  an  attorney,  which  were  dispersed  in  separate  spells 
of  eight  each  to  several  estates,  but  that  at  the  special  instance  of  the 
purchaser,  he  had  made  out  the  bills  of  parcels  at  thirty  pounds  per 


80 

head.  This  does  not  speak  much  in  favour  of  the  virtue  of  the  store 
keeper,  but  it  must  be  observed  that  he  would  have  lost  his  customer  had 
he  demurred,  and  would  probably  have  been  considered  as  righteous  over 
much.  There  is  a  variety  of  smaller  advantages  enjoyed  by  the  attor 
ney,  such  as  forming  connections  with  butchers  who  may  purchase  the 
fatted  cattle,  with  jobbers  of  negroes  for  the  purpose  of  intermingling 
negroes  at  a  proportionable  profit,  fattening  horses,  and  a  long  et  cetera. 
To  the  attorney  the  commanders  of  the  ships  in  the  trade  look  up  with 
due  respect,  and  as  they  are  proper  persons  to  speak  of  him  to  the 
merchant,  their  good-will  is  not  neglected.  To  the  involved  planter 
their  language  often  is,  '  Sir,  I  must  have  your  sugars  down  at  the 
wharf  directly:'  that  is,  your  sugars  are  to  make  the  lowest  tier,  to 
stand  the  chance  of  being  washed  out  should  the  ship  leak  or  make 
much  water  in  a  bad  passage.  When  they  address  an  attorney,  they 
do  not  ask  for  sugars,  but  his  favours,  as  to  quantity  and  time ;  and 
his  hogsheads  form  the  upper  tier."* 

AD  examination  made  about  this  period  proved  that  these  persons, 
198  in  number,  held  in  charge  606  sugar-works,  producing  about 
80,000  hhds.  of  sugar,  and  36,000  puncheons  of  rum,  which  at 
the  selling  prices  of  that  day  in  England  yielded  about  £4,000,000, 
upon  which  they  were  entitled  to  six  per  cent.,  or  £240,000.  We 
have  here  a  most  extensive  system  of  absenteeism,  and  absentees 
must  be  represented  by  middlemen,  having  no  interest  in  the  slave 
or  in  the  plantation,  except  to  take  from  both  all  that  can  be 
taken,  giving  as  little  as  possible  back  to  either. 

Why,  however,  did  this  absenteeism  exist?  Why  did  not  the 
owners  of  property  reside  on  their  estates  ?  Because  the  policy 
which  looked  to  limiting  the  whole  population,  male  and  female, 
old  and  young,  to  the  culture  of  sugar,  and  forbade  even  that  the 
sugar  itself  should  be  refined  on  the  island,  effectually  prevented 
the  growth  of  any  middle  class  that  should  form  the  population  of 
towns  at  which  the  planter  might  find  society  that  could  induce 
him  to  regard  the  island  as  his  home.  Such  was  not  the  case  in  the 
French  Islands,  because  the  French  government  had  not  desired  to 
prevent  the  weaker  class  of  the  population  from  engaging  in  the 
work  of  manufacture,  as  has  been  seen  in  the  case  of  Grenada, 
in  which  sugar  was  refined  until  the  period  of  its  surrender  to  the 
British  arms.f  Towns  therefore  grew  up,  and  men  of  all  descrip- 

*  Dallas's  History  of  the  Maroons,  vol.  ii.  358.  f  See  page  14,  an**. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  81 

tions  eame  from  Franco  to  make  the  islands  their  home;  whereas 
the  English  colonists  looked  only  to  realizing  a  fortune  and  return 
ing  home  to  spend  it.  All  this  is  fully  shown  in  the  following  ex 
tract,  in  which  is  given  a  comparative  view  of  the  British  and 
French  Islands  immediately  before  the  emancipation  act  of  1832. 

"  The  houses  have  more  of  a  European  air  than  in  our  English  colo 
nies,  and  I  must  notice  with  praise  the  existence  of  four  booksellers' 
shops,  as  large  and  well  furnished  as  any  second-rate  ones  in  Paris. 
The  sight  of  books  to  sell  in  the  West  Indies  is  like  water  in  the  desert, 
for  books  are  not  yet  included  in  plantation  stores  for  our  islands. 
The  cause  is  this.  The  French  colonists,  whether  Creoles  or  Euro 
peans,  consider  the  West  Indies  as  their  country  ;  they  cast  no  wistful 
looks  toward  France  ;  they  have  not  even  a  packet  of  their  own  ;  they 
marry,  educate,  and  build  in  and  for  the  West  Indies  and  the  West 
Indie's  alone.  In  our  colonies  it  is  quite  different;  except  a  few  regu 
lar  Creoles  to  whom  gratis  rum  and  gratis  coloured  mothers  for  their 
children  have  become  quite  indispensable,  every  one  regards  the 
colony  as  a  temporary  lodging-place,  where  they  must  sojourn  in  sugar 
and  molasses  till  their  mortgages  will  let  them  live  elsewhere.  They 
call  England  their  home,  though  many  of  them  have  never  been  there; 
they  talk  of  writing  home  and  going  home,  and  pique  themselves  more 
on  knowing  the  probable  result  of  a  contested  election  in  England 
than  on  mending  their  roads,  establishing  a  police,  or  purifying  a 
prison.  The  French  colonist  deliberately  expatriates  himself;  the 
Englishman  never.  If  our  colonies  were  to  throw  themselves  into  the 
hands  of  the  North  Americans,  as  their  enemies  say  that  some  of  them 
wish  to  do,  the  planters  would  make  their  little  triennial  trips  to  New 
York  as  they  now  do  to  London.  The  consequence  of  this  feeling  is 
that  every  one,  who  can  do  so,  maintains  some  correspondence  with 
England,  and  when  any  article  is  wanted,  he  sends  to  England  for  it. 
Hence,  except  in  the  case  of  chemical  drugs,  there  is  an  inconsiderable 
market  for  an  imported  store  of  miscellaneous  goods,  much  less  for  an 
assortment  of  articles  of  the  same  kind.  A  different  feeling  in  Mar 
tinique  produces  an  opposite  effect ;  in  that  island  very  little  individual 
correspondence  exists  with  France,  and  consequently  there  is  that 
effectual  demand  for  books,  wines,  jewelry,  haberdashery,  &c.,  in  the 
colony  itself,  which  enables  labour  to  be  divided  almost  as  far  as  in 
the  mother  country.  In  St.  Pierre  there  are  many  shops  which  con 
tain  nothing  but  bonnets,  ribbons,  and  silks,  others  nothing  but  trinkets 
and  toys,  others  hats  only,  and  so  on,  and  there  are  rich  tradesmen  in 
St.  Pierre  on  this  account.  Bridge  Town  would  rapidly  become  a 
wealthy  place,  if  another  system  were  adopted  ;  for  not  only  would 
the  public  convenience  be  much  promoted  by  a  steady,  safe,  and 
abundant  importation,  and  separate  preservation  of  each  article  in 
common  request,  but  the  demand  for  those  articles  would  be  one  hun 
dred-fold  greater  in  Bridge  Town  itself  than  it  now  is  on  the  same 
account  in  London,  Liverpool,  or  Bristol,  when  impeded  or  divided 
and  frittered  away  by  a  system  of  parcel-sending  across  the  Atlantic. 


82  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

Supply  will,,  under  particular  circumstances,  create  demand.  If  a 
post  were  established  at  Barbadoes,  or  a  steamboat  started  between 
the  islands,  a  thousand  letters  would  be  written  where  there  are  one 
hundred  now,  and  a  hundred  persons  would  interchange  visits  where 
ten  hardly  do  at  present.  1  want  a  book  and  cannot  borrow  it ;  I  would 
purchase  it  instantly  from  my  bookseller  in  my  neighbourhood,,  but  I 
may  not  think  it  worth  my  while  to  send  for  it  over  the  ocean,  when, 
with  every  risk,  I  must  wait  at  the  least  three  months  for  it.  The 
moral  consequences  of  this  system  are  even  more  to  be  lamented  than 
the  economical,  but  I  will  say  more  about  that  at  some  other  time/'* 
In  another  part  of  the  same  work,  the  writer  says — 

•  "  Schools  for  the  children  of  the  slaves  are  the  first  and  chief  step 
toward  amelioration  of  condition  and  morals  in  every  class  of  people 
in  the  West  Indies/' 

Here,  however,  the  same  difficulty  had  existed.  For  the  same 
reason  that  no  towns  could  arise  there  could  be  no  schools,  and  the 
planter  found  himself  forced  to  send  his  children  to  England  to  be 
educated;  the  consequence  of  which  was  that  at  his  death  his  pro 
perty  passed  into  the  hands  of  agents,  and  his  successors  having 
contracted  a  fondness  for  European  and  a  dislike  for  colonial 
life,  remained  abroad,  leaving  their  estates  to  go  to  ruin,  while  their 
people  perished  under  the  lash  of  men  who  had  no  other  interest 
than  to  ship  the  largest  quantity  of  sugar,  molasses,  and  rum. 
All  this  was  a  natural  result  of  the  system  that  denied  to  the 
women  and  children  the  privilege  of  converting  cotton  into  cloth, 
or  of  giving  themselves  to  other  in-door  pursuits.  The  mechanic 
was  not  needed  where  machinery  could  not  be  used,  and  without 
him  there  could  grow  up  neither  towns  nor  schools. 

The  reader  will  have  remarked,  in  the  first  extract  above  given, 
that  the  export  of  rum  generally  brought  the  planter  in  debt,  and  yet 
the  price  paid  for  it  by  the  consumers  appears  to  have  been  nearly 
a  million  of  pounds  sterling — that  is,  the  people  of  England  gave 
of  labour  and  its  products  that  large  sum  in  exchange  for  a  certain 
product  of  the  labouring  people  of  Jamaica,  not  a  shilling  of  which 
ever  reached  the  planter  to  be  applied  to  the  amelioration  of  the 
condition  of  his  estate,  or  of  the  people  upon  it.  The  crop  sold  on 
its  arrival  at  3s.  or  &s.  Qd.  a  gallon,  but  the  consumer  paid  for 
it  probably  17s.,  which  were  thus  divided: — 

*  Col«ridg«'s  "Six  Months  in  the  West  Indies/'  131. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  83 

Government,  representing  the  British  people  at  large  11.3 

Ship-owners,  wholesale  and  retail  dealers,  &c 5.9 

Land-owner  and  labourer 0.0 

TrT 


If  we  look  to  sugar,  we  find  a  result  somewhat  better,  but  of 
similar  character.  The  English  consumer  gave  for  it  80s.  worth 
of  labour,  and  those  shillings  were  nearly  thus  divided  : — 

Government 27 

Ship-owner,  merchant,  mortgagee,  &c oo 

Laud-owner  and  labourer  20 

80 

The  reader  will  now  see  that  Mr.  Joshua  Gee  was  not  exaggerat 
ing  when  he  gave  it  as  one  of  the  recommendations  of  the  colonial 
system  that  the  colonists  left  in  England  three-fourths  of  all  their 
products,*  the  difference  being  swallowed  up  by  those  who  made 
or  superintended  the  exchanges.  Such  was  the  result  desired  by 
those  who  compelled  the  planter  to  depend  on  a  distant  market  in 
which  to  sell  all  he  raised,  and  to  buy  all  he  and  his  people  needed 
to  consume.  The  more  he  took  out  of  his  land  the  more  he  ex 
hausted  it  and  the  less  he  obtained  for  its  products,  for  large  crops 
made  large  freights,  large  charges  for  storage,  and  enormous  col 
lections  by  the  government,  while  prices  fell  because  of  the  size 
of  the  crop,  and  thus  was  he  ruined  while  all  others  were  being 
enriched.  Under  such  circumstances  he  could  not  purchase  ma 
chinery  for  the  improvement  of  his  cultivation,  and  thus  was  he  de 
prived  of  the  power  to  render  available  the  services  of  the  people 
whom  he  was  bound  to  support.  Master  of  slaves,  he  was  himself 
a  slave  to  those  by  whom  the  labours  of  himself  and  his  workmen 
were  directed,  and  it  would  be  unfair  to  attribute  to  him  the  ex 
traordinary  waste  of  life  resulting  necessarily  from  the  fact  that 
the  whole  people  were  limited  to  the  labours  of  the  field. 

With  inexhaustible  supplies  of  timber,  the  island  contained, 
even  in  1850,  not  a  single  sawmill,  although  it  afforded  an  exten 
sive  market  for  lumber  from  abroad.  Yielding  in  the  greatest 

*  See  pages  71-2,  ante. 


84  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

abundance  the  finest  fruits,  there  were  yet  no  town's-people  with 
their  little  vessels  to  carry  them  to  the  larger  markets  of  this 
country,  and  for  want  of  market  they  rotted  under  the  trees.  "  The 
manufacturing  resources  of  this  island,"  says  Mr.  Bigelow,  "are 
inexhaustible;"  and  so  have  they  always  been,  but  the  people  have 
been  deprived  of  all  power  to  profit  by  them,  and  for  want  of  that 
power  there  was  lost  annually  a  greater  amount  of  labour  than 
would  have  paid,  five  times  over,  for  the  commodities  for  which 
they  were  compelled  to  look  to  the  distant  market.  Of  those  who 
did  not  perish  because  of  the  necessity  for  an  universal  dependence 
on  field  employments,  a  large  portion  of  the  labour  was  then,  as  it 
now  must  be,  utterly  wasted.  "  For  six  or  eight  months  of  the 
year,  nothing,"  says  Mr.  Bigelow,  (Notes,  p.  54,)  "is  done  on  the 
sugar  or  coffee  plantations."  "Agriculture,"  he  continues,  "as  at 
present  conducted,  does  not  occupy  more  than  half  their  time." 
So  was  it  fifty  years  ago,  and  it  was  because  of  the  compulsory 
waste  of  labour  and  consequent  small  amount  of  productive 
power  that  there  existed  little  opportunity  for  accumulating 
capital.  Population  diminished  because  there  could  be  no  im 
provement  of  the  condition  of  the  labourer  who,  while  thus  limit 
ed  in  the  employment  of  his  time,  was  compelled  to  support 
not  only  himself  and  his  master,  but  the  agent,  the  commission- 
merchant,  the  ship-owner,  the  mortgagee,  the  retail  trader,  and  the 
government,  and  this  under  a  system  that  looked  to  taking  every 
thing  from  the  land  and  returning  nothing  to  it.  Of  the  amount 
paid  in  1831  by  the  British  people  for  the  products  of  the  320,000 
black  labourers  of  this  island,  the  home  government  took  no  less 
than  £3,736,113  10s.  60?.,*  or  about  eighteen  millions  of  dollars, 
being  almost  sixty  dollars  per  head,  and  this  for  merely  superin 
tending  the  exchanges.  Had  no  such  claim  been  made  on  the 
product  of  the  labour  of  these  poor  people,  the  consumer  would 
have  had  his  sugar  cheaper,  and  this  would  have  made  a  large 
consumption,  and  these  eighteen  millions  would  have  been 
divided  between  the  black  labourer  on  the  one  hand  and  the  white 
one  on  the  other.  It  would  be  quite  safe  to  assert  that  in  that  year 

*  Martin's  West  Indies. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  85 

each  negro,  old  and  young,  male  and  female,  contributed  five 
pounds — $24 — to  the  maintenance  of  the  British  government,  and 
this  was  a  heavy  amount  of  taxation  to  be  borne  by  a  people  limited 
entirely  to  agriculture  and  destitute  of  the  machinery  necessary 
for  making  even  that  productive.  If  now  to  this  heavy  burden 
be  added  the  commissions,  freights,  insurance,  interest,  and  other 
charges,  it  will  readily  be  seen  that  a  system  of  taxation  so  grind 
ing  could  end  no  otherwise  than  in  ruin ;  and  that  such  was  the 
tendency  of  things  was  seen  in  the  steady  diminution  of  production. 
In  the  three  years  ending  with  1802,  the  average  exports  were,  of 

Sugar,  hhds.    Rum,  puncheons.     Coffee,  Ibs. 

113,000        44,000       14,000,000 
Whereas  those  of  the  three  years 

ending  with  1829  were  only     92,000         34,000        17,000,000 

The  system  which  looked  to  depriving  the  cultivator  of  the  advan 
tage  of  a  market  near  at  hand,  to  which  he  could  carry  his  products, 
and  from  which  he  could  carry  home  the  manure  and  thus  main 
tain  the  powers  of  his  land,  was  thus  producing  its  natural  results. 
It  was  causing  the  slave  to  become  from  day  to  day  more  enslaved ; 
and  that  such  was  the  case  is  shown  by  the  excess  of  deaths  over 
births,  as  given  in  a  former  chapter.  Evidence  of  exhaustion  was 
seen  in  every  thing  connected  with  the  island.  Labour  and  land 
were  declining  in  value,  and  the  security  for  the  payment  of  the 
large  debt  due  to  mortgagees  in  England  was  becoming  less  from 
year  to  year,  as  more  and  more  the  people  of  other  countries  were 
being  driven  to  the  work  of  cultivation  because  of  the  impossibility 
of  competing  with  England  in  manufactures.  Sugar  had  declined 
to  little  more  than  a  guinea  a  hundred-weight,  and  rum  had  fallen 
to  little  more  than  two  shillings  a  gallon  ;*  and  nearly  the  whole 
of  this  must  have  been  swallowed  up  in  commissions  and  interest. 
Under  such  circumstances  a  great  waste  of  life  was  inevitable ; 
and  therefore  it  is  that  we  have  seen  importations  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  black  men,  who  have  perished,  leaving  behind  them  no 


Tooke's  History  of  Prices,  ^01.  ii.  412, 

'  8 


86  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

trace  of  their  having  ever  existed.  But  on  whom  must  rest  the 
responsibility  for  a  state  of  things  so  hideous  as  that  here  exhibited? 
Not,  surely,  upon  the  planter,  for  he  exercised  no  volition  whatso 
ever.  He  was  not  permitted  to  employ  his  surplus  power  in  refin 
ing  his  own  sugar.  He  could  not  legally  introduce  a  spindle  or  a 
loom  into  the  island.  He  could  neither  mine  coal  nor  smelt  iron 
ore.  He  could  not  in  any  manner  repay  his  borrowings  from  the 
land,  and,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  loans  he  could  obtain  dimi 
nished  in  quantity  j  and  then,  small  as  they  were,  the  chief  part 
of  what  his  commodities  exchanged  for  was  swallowed  up  by  the 
exchangers  and  those  who  superintend  the  exchanges,  exercising 
the  duties  of  government.  He  was  a  mere  instrument  in  their 
hands  for  the  destruction  of  negro  morals,  intellect,  and  life ;  and 
upon  them,  and  not  upon  him,  must  rest  the  responsibility  for  the 
fact  that,  of  all  the  slaves  imported  into  the  island,  not  more  than 
two-fifths  were  represented  on  the  day  of  emancipation. 

Nevertheless,  he  it  was  that  was  branded  as  the  tyrant 
and  the  destroyer  of  morals  and  of  life ;  and  public  opinion — the 
public  opinion  of  the  same  people  who  had  absorbed  so  large  a 
portion  of  the  product  of  negro  labour — drove  the  government  to 
the  measure  of  releasing  the  slave  from  compulsory  service,  and 
appropriating  a  certain  amount  to  the  payment,  first,  of  the  mort 
gage  debts  due  in  England,  and,  second,  of  the  owner,  who,  even 
if  he  found  his  land  delivered  to  him  free  of  incumbrance,  was 
in  most  cases  left  without  a  shilling  to  enable  him  to  carry  on 
the  work  of  his  plantation.  The  slaves  were  set  free,  but  there 
existed  no  capital  to  find  them  employment,  and  from  the  moment 
of  emancipation  it  became  almost  impossible  to  borrow  money  on 
mortgage  security.  The  consequences  are  seen  in  the  extensive 
abandonment  of  land  and  the  decline  of  its  value.  Any  quantity 
of  it  may  be  purchased,  prepared  for  cultivation,  and  as  fine  as  any 
in  the  island,  for  five  dollars  an  acre,  while  other  land,  far  more 
productive  than  any  in  New  England,  may  be  had  at  from  fifty 
cents  to  one  dollar.  With  the  decline  in  the  value  of  land  the 
labourer  tends  toward  barbarism,  and  the  reason  of  this  may  be 
found  on  a  perusal  of  the  following  paragraph  : — 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  87 

"  They  have  no  new  manufactories  to  resort  to  when  they  are  in 
want  of  work  ;  no  unaccustomed  departments  of  mechanical  or  agri 
cultural  labour  are  open  to  receive  them,  to  stimulate  their  ingenuity 
and  reward  their  industry.  When  they  know  how  to  ply  the  hoe, 
pick  the  coffee-berry,  and  tend  the  sugar-mills,  they  have  learned 
almost  all  the  industry  of  the  island  can  teach  them.  If,  in  the  six 
teen  years  during  which  the  negroes  have  enjoyed  their  freedom,  they 
have  made  less  progress  in  civilization  than  their  philanthropic  cham 
pions  have  promised  or  anticipated,  let  the  want  I  have  suggested 
receive  some  consideration.  It  may  be  that  even  a  white  peasantry 
would  degenerate  under  such  influences.  Reverse  this,  and  when  the 
negro  has  cropped  his  sugar  or  his  coffee,  create  a  demand  for  his 
labour  in  the  mills  and  manufactories  of  w-hich  nature  has  invited  the 
establishment  on  this  island,  and  before  another  sixteen  years  would 
elapse  the  world  would  probably  have  some  new  facts  to  assist  them 
in  estimating  the  natural  capabilities  of  the  negro  race,  of  more 
efficiency  in  the  hands  of  the  philanthropist  than  all  the  appeals 
which  he  has  ever  been  able  to  address  to  the  hearts  or  the  con 
sciences  of  men."  Higelow's  Jamaica,  p.  156. 

The  artisan  has  always  been  the  ally  of  the  agriculturist  in  his 
contest  with  the  trader  and  the  government,  as  is  shown  in  the 
whole  history  of  the  world.  The  first  desires  to  tax  him  by  buy 
ing  cheaply  and  selling  dearly.  The  second  desires  to  tax  him  for 
permitting  him  to  make  his  exchanges,  and  the  more  distant  the 
place  of  exchange,  the  greater  the  power  of  taxation.  The  artisan 
comes  near  to  him,  and  enables  him  to  have  the  raw  materials  com 
bined  on  the  spot,  the  producer  of  them  exchanging  directly  with 
the  consumer,  paying  no  tax  for  the  maintenance  of  ship-owners, 
commission  merchants,  or  shopkeepers. 

In  a  piece  of  cloth,  says  Adam  Smith,  weighing  eighty  pounds, 
there  are  not  only  more  than  eighty  pounds  of  wool,  but  also 
"  several  thousand  weight  of  corn,  the  maintenance  of  the  working 
people,"  and  it  is  the  wool  and  the  corn  that  travel  cheaply  in  the 
form  of  cloth.  What,  however,  finally  becomes  of  the  corn  ? 
Although  eaten,  it  is  not  destroyed.  It  goes  back  again  on  the 
land,  which  becomes  enriched ;  and  the  more  that  is  taken  from 
it,  the  more  there  is  to  be  returned,  the  more  it  is  enriched,  the 
larger  are  the  crops,  and  the  greater  is  the  ability  of  the  farmer  to 
make  demands  on  the  artisan.  The  reward  of  the  latter  increases 
with  the  growth  in  the  value  of  the  land  and  with  the  increase  in 
the  wealth  of  the  land-owners  by  whom  he  is  surrounded;  and 


THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

thus  it  is  that  all  grow  rich  and  free  together,  and  that  the  com 
munity  acquires  from  year  to  year  power  to  resist  attempts  at 
taxation  beyond  that  really  needed  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
rights  of  person  and  property.  .  The  greater  the  power  to  make 
exchanges  at  home,  the  greater  will  always  be  found  the  freedom 
of  man  in  relation  to  thought,  speech,  action,  and  trade,  and  tho 
greater  the  value  of  land. 

The  object  of  the  policy  pursued  toward  the  colonies  was  directly 
the  reverse  of  all  this,  tending  to  prevent  any  diversification  what 
soever  of  employments,  and  thus  not  only  to  prevent  increase  in  the 
value  of  land,  but  to  diminish  its  value,  because  it  forbade  the  re 
turn  to  the  earth  of  any  portion  of  its  products.  It  forbade  asso 
ciation,  because  it  limited  the  whole  people  to  a  single  pursuit.  It 
forbade  the  immigration  of  artisans,  the  growth  of  towns,  the 
establishment  of  schools,  and  consequently  forbade  the  growth  of 
intellect  among  the  labourers  or  their  owners.  It  forbade  the 
growth  of  population,  because  it  drove  the  women  and  the  children 
to  the  culture  of  sugar  among  the  richest  and  most  unhealthy  soils 
of  the  islands.  It  thus  impoverished  the  land  and  its  owners,  ex 
terminated  the  slave,  and  weakened  the  community,  thus  making 
it  a  mere  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  people  who  effected  and 
superintended  the  exchanges — the  merchants  and  the  government 
— the  class  of  persons  that,  in  all  ages,  has  thriven  at  the  cost  of 
the  cultivator  of  the  earth.  By  separating  the  consumer  from  the 
producer,  they  were  enabled,  as  has  been  shown,  to  take  to  them 
selves  three-fourths  of  the  whole  sales  of  the  commodities  con 
sumed,  leaving  but  one-fourth  to  be  divided  between  the  land  and 
labour  that  had  produced  it.  They,  of  course,  grew  strong,  while 
the  sugar-producing  land  and  labour  grew  weak,  and  the  weaker 
they  became,  the  less  was  the  need  for  regarding  the  rights  of 
either.  In  this  state  of  things  it  was  that  the  landholder  was  re 
quired  to  accept  a  fixed  sum  of  money  as  compensation  for  relin 
quishing  his  claim  to  demand  of  the  labourer  the  performance  of 
the  work  to  which  he  had  been  accustomed.  Unfortunately,  how 
ever,  the  system  pursued  has  effectually  prevented  that  improve 
ment  of  feeling  and  taste  needed  to  produce  in  the  latter  desires 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  89 

for  any  thing  beyond  a  sufficiency  of  food  and  a  shirt.  Towns 
and  shops  not  having  grown,  he  had  not  been  accustomed  even  to 
see  the  commodities  that  tempted  his  fellow-labourers  in  the 
French  Islands.  Schools  not  having  existed,  even  for  the  whites, 
be  had  acquired  no  desire  for  books  for  himself,  or  for  instruc 
tion  for  his  children.  His  wife  had  acquired  no  taste  for  dress, 
because  she  had  been  limited  to  field  labour.  Suddenly  emanci 
pated  from  control,  they  gratified  the  only  desire  that  had  been 
permitted  to  grow  up  in  them — the  love  of  perfect  idleness,  to  be 
indulged  to  such  extent  as  was  consistent  with  obtaining  the  little 
food  and  clothing  needed  for  the  maintenance  of  existence. 

Widely  different  would  have  been  the  state  of  affairs  had  they 
been  permitted  to  make  their  exchanges  at  home,  giving  the  cotton 
and  the  sugar  for  the  cloth  and  the  iron  produced  by  the  labour 
and  from  the  soil  of  the  island.  The  producer  of  the  sugar  would 
then  have- had  all  the  cloth  given  for  it  by  the  consumer,  instead 
of  obtaining  one-fourth  of  it,  and  then  the  land  would  have  in 
creased  in  value,  the  planter  would  have  grown  rich,  and  the 
labourer  would  have  become  free,  by  virtue  of  a  great  natural 
law  which  provides  that  the  more  rapid  the  augmentation  of 
wealth,  the  greater  must  be  the  demand  for  labour,  the  greater 
must  be  the  quantity  of  commodities  produced  by  the  labourer, 
the  larger  must  be  his  proportion  of  the  product,  and  the  greater 
must  be  the  tendency  toward  his  becoming  a  free  man  and  himself 
a  capitalist.* 

As  a  consideration  for  abstaining  from  converting  their  own 
sugar  and  cotton  into  cloth,  it  had  been  provided  that  their  pro 
ducts  should  enjoy  certain  advantages  in  the  ports  of  the  mother 
country;  and  the  understanding  at  the  date  of  emancipation  was 
that  the  free  negro  should  continue  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  same  pri 
vileges  that  had  been  allowed  to  the  slave  and  his  master.  It  was 
soon,  however,  discovered  that  the  negro,  having  scarcely  any  desire 
beyond  the  food  that  could  be  obtained  from  a  little  patch  of  land, 


*  The  reader  who  may  desire  to  see  this  law  fully  demonstrated,  may  do  so  on 
referring  to  the  author's  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  vol.  i.  chap.  v. 

8* 


90  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

would  not  work,  and  that,  consequently,  the  supply  of  sugar  was 
reduced,  with  a  large  increase  of  price,  and  that  thus  the  ship 
owner  suffered  because  of  diminished  freights,  the  merchant 
because  of  reduced  consumption,  and  the  government  because  of 
reduced  revenue.  Instead  of  obtaining,  as  before,  one-fourth  of  the 
product,  the  cultivator  had  now  perhaps  one-half,  because  the  taxes 
did  not  rise  with  the  rise  of  price.  Nevertheless,  the  land-owners 
and  labourers  of  the  island  were  weaker  than  before,  for  all  power 
of  association  had  disappeared ;  and  now  it  was  that  the  trader  and 
the  government  discovered  that  if  they  would  continue  to  draw 
from  the  sugar  producers  of  the  world  their  usual  supplies  of  pjib- 
lic  and  private  revenue,  they  must  resort  again  to  slave  labour, 
putting  the  poor  free  negro  of  Jamaica,  with  his  exhausted  soil, 
on  the  same  footing  with  the  slave  of  Brazil  and  Cuba,  on  a  virgin 
soil ;  and  this,  too,  at  a  moment  when  the  science  of  Europe  had 
triumphed  over  the  difficulty  of  making  sugar  cheaply  from  the 
beet-root,  and  Germany,  France,  and  Belgium  were  threatening  to 
furnish  supplies  so  abundant  as  almost  to  exclude  the  produce  of  the 
cane.  They,  too,  had  the  sugar-refinery  close  at  hand,  whereas 
the  poor  free  negro  was  not  permitted  to  refine  his  product,  nor  is 
lie  so  even  now,  although  it  is  claimed  that  sugar  might  still  be 
grown  with  advantage,  were  he  permitted  to  exercise  even  that 
small  amount  of  control  over  his  labour  and  its  products. 

What  was  the  character  of  the  machinery  with  which  they 
were  to  enter  on  this  competition  will  be  seen  by  the  following 
extract : — 

"  I  could  not  learn  that  there  were  any  estates  on  the  island  decently 
stocked  with  implements  of  husbandry.  Even  the  modern  axe  is  not 
in  general  use ;  for  felling  the  larger  class  of  trees  the  negroes  com 
monly  use  what  they  call  an  axe,  which  is  shaped  much  like  a  wedge, 
except  that  it  is  a  little  wider  at  the  edge  than  at  the  opposite  end,  at 
the  very  extremity  of  which  a  perfectly  straight  handle  is  inserted. 
A  more  awkward  thing  for  chopping  could  not  be  well  conceived — at 
least,  so  I  thought  until  I  saw  the  instrument  in  yet  more  general  use 
about  the  houses  in  the  country,  for  cutting  firewood.  It  was,  in 
shape,  size,  and  appearance,  more  like  the  outer  half  of  the  blade  of  a 
scythe,  stuck  into  a  small  wooden  handle,  than  any  thing  else  I  can 
compare  it  to  :  with  this  long  knife,  for  it  is  nothing  else,  I  have  seen 
negroes  hacking  at  branches  of  palm  for  several  minutes,  to  accom- 


DOMESTIC    AND   FOREIGN.  91 

plish  what  a  good  wood-chopper,  with  an  American  axe,  would  finish 
at  a  single  stroke.  I  am  not  now  speaking  of  the  poorer  class  of  negro 
proprietors,*  whose  poverty  or  ignorance  might  excuse  this,  but  of  the 
proprietors  of  large  estates,  which  have  cost  their  thousands  of 
pounds."* 

Cuba,  too,  had  its  cities  and  its  shops,  and  these  it  had  because 
the  Spanish  government  had  not  desired  to  compel  the  people  of 
the  island  to  limit  themselves  to  cultivation  alone.  Manufactures 
were  small  in  extent,  but  they  existed ;  and  the  power  to  make 
exchanges  on  the  spot  had  tended  to  prevent  the  growth  of  ab 
senteeism.  The  land-owners  were  present  to  look  after  their 
estates,  and  every  thing  therefore  tended  toward  improvement  and 
civilization,  with  constantly  increasing  attraction  of  both  capital 
and  labour.  Jamaica,  on  the  contrary,  had  but  a  seaport  so  poor 
as  not  to  have  a  single  foot  of  sidewalk  paved,  and  of  which  three- 
fourths  of  the  inhabitants  were  of  the  black  race;  and  among  them 
all,  blacks  and  whites,  there  were  no  mechanics.  In  the  capital 
of  the  island,  Spanishtown,  with  a  population  of  5000,  there  was 
not  to  be  found,  in  1850,  a  single  shop,  nor  a  respectable  hotel, 
nor  even  a  dray-cart  ;f  and  in  the  whole  island  there  was  not  a 
stage,  nor  any  other  mode  of  regular  conveyance,  by  land  or  water, 
except  on  the  little  railroad  of  fifteen  miles  from  Kingston  to  the 
capital.  J 

Such  was  the  machinery  of  production,  transportation,  and  ex 
change,  by  aid  of  which  the  free  people  of  Jamaica  were  to  main- 
t-aiji  "  unlimited  competition"  with  Cuba,  and  its  cities,  railroads, 
and  virgin  soil,  and  with  Europe  and  i£s  science.  What  is  to  be 
the  ultimate  result  may  be  inferred  from  the  following  comparative 
view  of  the  first  four  years  of  the  century,  and  the  last  four  for 
which  we  have  returns  : — 

Sugar,  hhds.   Rum,  puncheons.    Coffee,  Ibs. 

1800  to  1803,  average  export,   124,000         44,000       14,600,000 
1845  to  1848,       "  «         44,000        17,000        6,000,000 

The  consequence  of  this  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  it  requires  the 


Bigelow,  Notes,  129.  Ibid,  31.  J  Ibid, 


92  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

wages  of  two  men,  for  a  day,  to  pay  for  a  pound  of  butter,  and  of  two 
women  to  pay  for  a  pound  of  ham,  while  it  would  neec^  the  labour 
of  eighty  or  a  hundred  men,  for  a  day,  to  pay  for  a  barrel  of 
flour.*  The  London  Times  has  recently  stated  that  the  free 
labourer  now  obtains  less  food  than  he  did  in  the  days  of  slavery, 
and  there  appears  no  reason  to  doubt  the  accuracy  of  its  informa 
tion.  This  view  would,  indeed,  seem  to  be  fully  confirmed  by  the 
admission,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  the  cost  of  sugar  "in 
labour  and  food"  is  less  now  than  it  was  six  years  since. f 

How  indeed  can  it  be  otherwise  ?  The  object  sought  for  is  cheap 
sugar,  and  with  a  view  to  its  attainment  the  production  of  sugar  is 
stimulated  in  every  quarter;  and  we  all  know  that  the  more  that  is 
produced  the  larger  will  be  the  quantity  poured  into  the  market 
of  England,  and  the  greater  will  be  the  power  of  the  people  of 
that  country  to  dictate  the  terms  upon  which  they  will  consent  to 
consume  it.  Extensive  cultivation  and  good  crops  produce  low 
prices,  high  freights,  large  commissions,  and  large  revenue;  and 
when  such  crops  are  made  the  people  of  England  enjoy  "cheap 
sugar"  and  are  "prosperous,"  but  the  slave  is  rendered  thereby 
more  a  slave,  obtaining  less  and  less  food  in  return  for  his  labour. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  in  that  direction  that  the  whole  of  the  present 
policy  of  England  points.  The  "  prosperity"  of  her  people  is  to 
be  secured  by  aid  of  cheap  sugar  and  high-priced  cloth  and  iron ; 
and  the  more  exclusively  the  people  of  India  and  of  Brazil  can  be 
forced  to  devote  themselves  to  the  labours  of  the  field,  the  cheaper 
will  be  sugar  and  the  greater  will  be  the  tendency  of  cloth  and 
iron  to  be  dear.  What,  however,  becomes  of  the  poor  free  negro? 
The  more  sugar  he  sends  the  more  the  stocks  accumulate,  and  the 
lower  are  the  prices,  and  the  smaller  is  his  power  to  purchase 
clothing  or  machinery,  as  will  now  be  shown. 

*  Bigelow,  125. 

f  Speech  of  Mr.  James  Wilson,  December  10,  1852.  On  the  same  occasion  it 
was  stated  that  "the  lower  orders"  are  daily  "putting  aside  all  decency,"  while 
"  the  better  class  appear  to  have  lost  all  hope,"  and  that  the  Governor,  Sir 
Charles  Grey,  "described  things  as  going  on  from  bad  to  worse."  The  cholera 
had  carried  off,  as  was  stated,  40,000  persons. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  93 

The  London  Economist,  of  November  13,  furnishes  the  following 
statement  of  stocks  and  prices  of  sugar  in  the  principal  markets  of 
Europe  : — 

1849.       1850.       1851.       1852. 

Stocks cwt.  3,563,000  ...  2,895,000  ...  3,810,000  ...  3,216,000 

Prices — duty  free. 

Havana  Brown 17  to  24s.  ...  20  to  27s.  ...  16  to  22s.  ...  19  to  26*. 

Brazil  Brown 16  to  20s.  ...  18  to  22s.  ...  12  to  17s.  ...  16  to  20s. 

The  stocks  of  1849  and  1852  were,  as  we  see,  nearly  alike,  and 
the  prices  did  not  greatly  differ.  Taking  them,  therefore,  as  the 
standard,  we  see  that  a  diminution  of  supply  so  small  as  to  cause 
a  diminution  of  stock  to  the  extent  of  about  400,000  cwts.,  or  only 
about  three  per  cent,  of  the  import,  added  about  fifteen  per  cent,  to 
the  prices  of  the  whole  crop  in  1850 ;  whereas  a  similar  excess  of 
supply  in  1851  caused  a  reduction  of  prices  almost  as  great.  The 
actual  quantity  received  in  Europe  in  the  first  ten  months  of  the 
last  year  had  been  509,000  cwts.  less  than  in  the  corresponding 
months  of  the  previous  one.  The  average  monthly  receipts  are 
about  a  million  of  cwts.  per  month,  and  if  we  take  the  prices  of 
those  two  years  as  a  standard,  the  following  will  be  the  result : — 

1851 12,000,000  cwts.   Average  16s.  Qd £10,050,000 

1852 11,500,000    «  «       20s.  3d 11,643,750 

Gain  on  short  crop  1,593,750 

If  now  we  compare  1850  with  1851,  the  following  is  the  result : — 

1851  as  above 10,050,000 

1850 11,000,000  cwts.  Average  21s.  9d 11,971,250 

1,921,250 

Now  if  this  reduction  of  export  had  been  a  conse 
quence  of  increased  domestic  consumption,  we  should 
have  to  add  the  value  of  that  million  to  the  product, 
and  this  would  give 1,187,500 

£3,108,750 

We  have  here  a  difference  of  thirty  per  cent,  resulting  from  a 
diminution  of  export  to  the  amount  of  one-twelfth  of  the  export  to 
Europe,  and  not  more  than  a  twenty-fourth  of  the  whole  crop. 
Admitting  the  crop  to  have  been  24,000,000  of  cwts.,  and  it  must 


94  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

have  been  more,  the  total  difference  produced  by  this  abstraction 
of  four  per  cent,  from  the  markets  of  Europe  would  be  more  than 
six  millions  of  pounds,  or  thirty  millions  of  dollars.  Such  being 
the  result  of  a  difference  of  four  per  cent.,  if  the  people  of  Cuba, 
Brazil,  India,  and  other  countries  were  to  turn  some  of  their  labour 
to  the  production  of  cloth,  iron,  and  other  commodities  for  which 
they  are  now  wholly  dependent  on  Europe,  and  thus  diminish 
their  necessity  for  export  to  the  further  extent  of  two  per  cent., 
is  it  not  quite  certain  that  the  effect  would  be  almost  to  double  the 
value  of  the  sugar  crop  of  the  world,  to  the  great  advantage  of 
the  free  cultivator  of  Jamaica,  who  would  realize  more  for  his 
sugar,  while  obtaining  his  cloth  and  his  iron  cheaper  ?  If  he  could 
do  this  would  hfe  not  become  a  freer  man  ?  Is  not  this,  however, 
directly  the  reverse  of  what  is  sought  by  those  who  believe  the 
prosperity  of  England  to  be  connected  with  cheap  sugar,  and  who 
therefore  desire  that  competition  for  the  sale  of  sugar  should  be 
unlimited,  while  competition  for  the  sale  of  cloth  is  to  be  limited  f 
"  Unlimited  competition"  looks  to  competition  for  the  sale  of 
raw  produce  in  the  markets  of  England,  and  to  the  destruction  of 
any  competition  with  England  for  the  sale  of  manufactured  goods; 
and  it  is  under  this  system  that  the  poor  labourer  of  Jamaica  is 
being  destroyed.  He  is  now  more  a  slave  than  ever,  because  his 
labour  yields  him  less  of  the  necessaries  and  comforts  of  life  than 
when  a  master  was  bound  to  provide  for  him. 

Such  is  a  brief  history  of  West  India  slavery,  from  its  com 
mencement  to  the  present  day,  and  from  it  the  reader  will  be 
enabled  to  form  an  estimate  of  the  judgment  which  dictated  im 
mediate  and  unconditional  emancipation,  and  of  the  humanity  that 
subsequently  dictated  unlimited  freedom  of  competition  for  the 
sale  of  sugar.  That  of  those  who  advocated  emancipation  vast 
numbers  were  actuated  by  the  most  praiseworthy  motives,  there  can 
be  no  doubt;  but  unenlightened  enthusiasm  has  often  before  led 
almost  to  crime,  and  it  remains  to  be  seen  if  the  impartial  histo 
rian  will  not,  at  a  future  day,  say  that  such  has  been  here  the  case. 
As  regards  the  course  which  has  been  since  pursued  toward  these 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  95 

impoverished,  ignorant,  and  defenceless  people,  he  will  perhaps 
have  less  difficulty;  and  it  is  possible  that  in  recording  it,  the 
motives  which  led  to  it,  and  the  results,  he  may  find  himself 
forced  to  place  it  among  crimes  of  the  deepest  dye. 


CHAPTER   X. 

HOW  SLAVERY  GREW  AND  IS  MAINTAINED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

THE  first  attempt  at  manufacturing  any  species  of  cloth  in  the 
North  American  provinces  produced  a  resolution  on  the  part  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  [1710,]  that  "  the  erecting  of  manufacto 
ries  in  the  colonies  had  a  tendency  to  lessen  their  dependence  on 
Great  Britain."  Soon  afterward  complaints  were  made  to  Parlia 
ment  that  the  colonists  were  establishing  manufactories  for  thefc- 
selves,  and  the  House  of  Commons  ordered  the  Board  of  Trade  to 
report  on  the  subject,  which  was  done  at  great  length.  In  1732, 
the  exportation  of  hats  from  province  to  province  was  prohibited, 
and  the  number  of  apprentices  to  be  taken  by  hatters  was  limited. 
In  1750  the  erection  of  any  mill  or  other  engine  for  splitting  or 
rolling  iron  was  prohibited;  but  pig  iron  was  allowed  to  be  im 
ported  into  England  duty  free,  that  it  might  there  be  manufactured 
and  sent  back  again.  At  a  later  period,  Lord  Chatham  declared 
that  he  would  not  permit  the  colonists  to  make  even  a  hobnail  for 
themselves — and  his  views  were  then  and  subsequently  carried  into 
effect  by  the  absolute  prohibition  in  1765  of  the  export  of  artisans, 
in  1781  of  woollen  machinery,  in  1782  of  cotton  machinery  and 
artificers  in  cotton,  in  1785  of  iron  and  steel-making  machinery 
and  workmen  in  those  departments  of  trade,  and  in  1799  by  the 
prohibition  of  the  export  of  colliers,  lest  other  countries  should 
acquire  the  art  of  mining  coal. 

The  tendency  of  the  system  has  thus  uniformly  been — 
I.  To  prevent  the  application  of  labour  elsewhere  than  in  Eng 
land  to  any  pursuit  but  that  of  agriculture,  and  thus  to  deprive  the 


96  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

weaker  portion  of  society — the  women  and  children — of  any  em 
ployment  but  in  the  field. 

II.  To  compel  whole  populations  to  produce  the  same  commodi 
ties,  and  thus  to  deprive  them  of  the  power  to  make  exchanges 
among  themselves. 

III.  To  compel  them,  therefore,  to  export  to  England  all  their 
produce  in  its  rudest  forms,  at  great  cost  of  transportation. 

IV.  To  deprive  them  of  all  power  of  returning  to  the  land  the 
manure  yielded  by  its  products,  and  thus  to  compel  them  to  ex 
haust  their  land. 

V.  To  deprive  them  of  the  power  of  associating  together  for  the 
building  of  towns,  the  establishment  of  schools,  the  making  of 
roads,  or  the  defence  of  their  rights. 

VI.  To  compel  them,  with  every  step  in  the  process  of  exhaust 
ing  the  land,  to  increase  their  distances  from  each  other  and  from 

o  t 

market. 

%VII.  To  compel  the  waste  of  all  labour  that  could  not  be  em 
ployed  in  the  field. 

VIII.  To  compel  the  waste  of  all  the  vast  variety  of  things 
almost  valueless  in  themselves,  but  which  acquire  value  as  men 
are  enabled  to  work  in  combination  with  each  other.* 

*  The  following  case  illustrates  in  a  very  striking  manner  the  value  that  is 
given  to  things  that  must  be  wasted  among  an  exclusively  agricultural  popula- 
tlon, — and  it  is  but  one  of  thousands  that  might  be  adduced : 

WHAT  OLD  BONES  AND  BITS  OP  SKIN  MAY  BE  GOOD  FOR. — How  to  get  a  penny 
worth  of  beauty  out  of  old  bones  and  bits  of  skin,  is  a  problem  which  the  French 
gelatine  makers  have  solved  very  prettily.  Does  the  reader  remember  some 
gorgeous  sheets  of  colored  gelatine  in  the  French  department  of  the  Great 
Exhibition  ?  We  owed  them  to  the  slaughter-houses  of  Paris.  These  establish 
ments  are  so  well  organized  and  conducted,  that  all  the  refuse  is  carefully 
preserved,  to  be  applied  to  any  purposes  for  which  it  may  be  deemed  fitting. 
Very  pure  gelatine  is  made  from  the  waste  fragments  of  skin,  bone,  tendon,  liga 
ture,  and  gelatinous  tissue  of  the  animals  slaughtered  in  the  Parisian  abbatoirs, 
and  thin  sheets  of  this  gelatine  are  made  to  receive  very  rich  and  beautiful  colors. 
As  a  gelatinous  liquid,  when  melted,  it  is  used  in  the  dressing  of  woven  stuffs, 
and  in  the  clarification  of  wine ;  and  as  a  solid,  it  is  cut  into  threads  for  the  orna 
mental  uses  of  the  confectioner,  or  made  into  very  thin  white  sheets  of  papier 
glace,  for  copying,  drawing,  or  applied  to  the  making  of  artificial  flowers,  or  used 
as  a  substitute  for  paper,  on  which  gold  printing  may  be  executed.  In  good 
sooth,  when  an  ox  has  given  us  our  beef,  and  our  leather,  and  our  tallow,  his  ca 
reer  of  usefulness  is  by  no  means  ended;  we  can  get  a  penny  out  of  him  as  long 
as  there  is  a  scrap  of  his  substance  above  ground. — Household  Word». 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  97 

IX.  To  prevent  increase  in  the  value  of  land  and  in  the  demand 
for  the  labour  of  man ;  and, 

X.  To  prevent  advance  toward  civilization  and  freedom. 

That  such  were  the  tendencies  of  the  system  was  seen  by  the 
people  of  the  colonies.  "  It  is  well  known  and  understood,"  said 
Franklin,  in  1771,  "that  whenever  a  manufacture  is  established 
which  employs  a  number  of  hands,  it  raises  the  value  of  lands  in 
the  neighbouring  country  all  around  it,  partly  by  the  greater  de 
mand  near  at  hand  for  the  produce  of  the  land,  and  partly  from  the 
plenty  of  money  drawn  by  the  manufactures  to  that  part  of  the 
country.  It  seems,  therefore,"  he  continued,  "  the  interest  of 
all  our  farmers  and  owners  of  lands,  to  encourage  our  young  manu 
factures  in  preference  to  foreign  ones  imported  among  us  from  dis 
tant  countries."  Such  was  the  almost  universal  feeling  of  the 
country,  and  to  the  restriction  on  the  power  to  apply  labour  was 
due,  in  a  great  degree,  the  Revolution. 

The  power  to  compel  the  colonists  to  make  all  their  exchanges 
abroad  gave  to  the  merchants  of  England,  and  to  the  government, 
the  same  power  of  taxation  that  we  see  to  have  been  so  freely  exer- 
3ised  in  regard  to  sugar.  In  a  paper  published  in  1750,  in  the 
London  General  Advertiser,  it  was  stated  that  Virginia  then  exported 
50,000  hhds.  of  tobacco,  producing  £550,000,  of  which  the  ship 
owner,  the  underwriter,  the  commission  merchant,  and  the  govern 
ment  took  £450,000,  leaving  to  be  divided  between  the  land-owner 
and  labourer  only  £100,000,  or  about  eighteen  per  cent.,  which  is 
less  even  than  the  proportion  stated  by  Gee,  in  his  work  of  that 
date.  Under  such  circumstances  the  planter  could  accumulate  little 
capital  to  aid  him  in  the  improvement  of  his  cultivation. 

The  Revolution  came,  and  thenceforward  there  existed  no  legal 
impediments  to  the  establishment  of  home  markets  by  aid  of  which 
the  farmer  might  be  enabled  to  lessen  the  cost  of  transporting  his 
produce  to  market,  and  his  manure  from  market,  thus  giving  to  his 
land  some  of  those  advantages  of  situation  which  elsewhere  add  so 
largely  to  its  value.  The  prohibitory  laws  had,  however,  had  the 
effect  of  preventing  the  gradual  growth  of  the  mechanic  arts,  and 
Virginia  had  no  towns  of  any  note,  while  to  the  same  circumstances 

9 


98 

was  due  the  fact  that  England  was  prepared  to  put  down  all  at 
tempts  at  competition  with  her  in  the  manufacture  of  cloth,  or  of 
iron.  The  territory  of  the  former  embraced  forty  millions  of  acres, 
and  her  widely  scattered  population  amounted  to  little  more  than 
600,000.  At  the  North,  some  descriptions  of  manufacture  had 
grown  slowly  up,  and  the  mechanics  were  much  more  numerous, 
and  towns  had  gradually  grown  to  be  very  small  cities;  the  conse 
quence  of  which  was  that  the  farmer  there,  backed  by  the  artisan, 
always  his  ally,  was  more  able  to  protect  himself  against  the  trader, 
who  represented  the  foreign  manufacturer.  Everywhere,  however, 
the  growth  of  manufactures  was  slow,  and  everywhere,  consequently, 
the  farmer  was  seen  exhausting  his  land  in  growing  wheat,  tobacco, 
and  other  commodities,  to  be  sent  to  distant  markets,  from  which 
no  manure  could  be  returned.  With  the  exhaustion  of  the  land 
its  owners  became,  of  course,  impoverished,  and  there  arose  a  ne 
cessity  for  the  removal  of  the  people  who  cultivated  it,  to  new 
lands,  to  be  in  turn  exhausted.  In  the  North,  the  labourer  thus 
circumstanced,  removed  himself.  In  the  South,  he  had  to  be  re 
moved.  Sometimes  the  planter  abandoned  his  land  and  travelled 
forth  with  all  his  people,  but  more  frequently  he  found  himself 
compelled  to  part  with  some  of  his  slaves  to  others;  and  thus  has 
the  domestic  slave  trade  grown  by  aid  of  the  exhaustive  process  to 
which  the  land  and  its  owner  have  been  subjected. 

The  reader  may  obtain  some  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  exhaustion 
that  has  taken  place,  by  a  perusal  of  the  following  extracts  from  an 
address  to  the  Agricultural  Society  of  Albemarle  County,  Virginia, 
by  one  of  the  best  authorities  of  the  State,  the  Hon.  Andrew  Ste 
venson,  late  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  Minister 
to  England. 

Looking  to  what  is  the  "real  situation"  of  things,  the  speaker 


"Is  there  an  intelligent  and  impartial  man  who  can  cast  his  eye* 
over  the  State  and  not  be  impressed  with  the  truth,  deplorable  as  it  is 
afflicting,  that  the  produce  of  most  of  our  lands  is  not  only  small  in  pro 
portion  to  the  extent  in  cultivation,  but  that  the  lands  themselves  have 
been  gradually  sinking  and  becoming  worse,  under  a  most  defective 
and  ruinous  system  of  cultivation?"  "The  truth  is,,"  he  continues. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  99 

"we  must  all  feel  and  know  that  the  spirit  of  agricultural  improvement 
has  been  suffered  to  languish  too  long  in  Virginia,  and  that  it  is  now 
reaching  a  point,  in  the  descending  scale,  from  which,  if  it  is  not  re 
vived,  and  that  very  speedily,  our  State  must  continue  not  only  third 
or  fourth  in  population,  as  she  now  is,  but  consent  to  take  her  station 
among  her  smaller  sisters  of  the  Union." 

The  cause  of  this  unhappy  state  of  things  he  regards  as  being  to 
be  found  in  "  a  disregard  of  scientific  knowledge"  and  "  a  deep- 
rooted  attachment  to  old  habits  of  cultivation,"  together  with  >he 
"  practice  of  hard  cropping  and  injudicious  rotation  of  crops,  leading 
them  to  cultivate  more  land  than  they  can  manure,  or  than  they 
have  means  of  improving •"  and  the  consequences  are  found  in  the 
fact  that  in  all  the  country  east  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  the  average 
product  of  wheat  "does  not  come  up  to  seven  bushels  to  the  acre," 
four  of  which  are  required  to  restore  the  seed  and  defray  the  cost 
of  cultivation,  leaving  to  the  land-owner  for  his  own  services  and 
those  of  a  hundred  acres  of  land,  three  hundred  bushels,  worth,  at 
present  prices,  probably  two  hundred  and  seventy  dollars !  Even 
this,  however,  is  not  as  bad  an  exhibit  as  is  produced  in  reference 
to  another  populous  district  of  more  than  a  hundred  miles  in  length 
— that  between  Lynchburg  and  Richmond — in  which  the  product 
is  estimated  at  not  exceeding  six  bushels  to  the  acre!  Under  such 
circumstances,  we  can  scarcely  be  surprised  to  learn  from  the 
speaker  that  the  people  of  his  great  State,  where  meadows  abound 
and  marl  exists  in  unlimited  quantity,  import  potatoes  from  the 
poor  States  of  the  North,  and  are  compelled  to  be  dependent  upon 
them  for  hay  and  butter,  the  importers  of  which  realize  fortunes, 
while  the  farmers  around  them  are  everywhere  exhausting  their 
land  and  obtaining  smaller  crops  in  each  successive  year. 

Why  is  this  so?  Why  should  Virginia  import  potatoes  and  hay, 
cheese  and  butter  ?  An  acre  of  potatoes  may  be  made  to  yield  four 
hundred  bushels,  and  meadows  yield  hay  by  tons,  and  yet  her 
people  raise  wheat,  of  which  they  obtain  six  or  seven  bushels  to 
the  acre,  and  corn,  of  which  they  obtain  fifteen  or  twenty,  and  with 
the  produce  of  these  they  buy  butter  and  cheese,  pork  and  potatoes, 
which  yield  to  the  producer  five  dollars  where  they  get  one — and 
import  many  of  these  things,  too,  from  States  in  which  manufactur- 


100  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

ing  populations  abound,  and  in  which  all  these  commodities  should, 
in  the  natural  course  of  things,  be  higher  in  price  than  in  Virginia, 
where  all,  even  when  employed,  are  engaged  in  the  cultivation  of 
the  soil.  The  answer  to  these  questions  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  the  farmers  and  planters  of  the  State  can  make  no  manure. 
They  raise  wheat  and  corn,  which  they  send  elsewhere  to  be  con 
sumed;  and  the  people  among  whom  it  is  consumed  put  the  refuse 
on  their  own  lands,  and  thus  are  enabled  to  raise  crops  that  count 
by  tons,  which  they  then  exchange  with  the  producers  of  the  wheat 
produced  on  land  that  yields  six  bushels  to  the  acre. 

"  How  many  of  our  people,"  continues  the  speaker,  "do  we  see  dis 
posing  of  their  lands  at  ruinous  prices,  and  relinquishing  their  birth 
places  and  friends,  to  settle  themselves  in  the  West;  and  many  not  so 
much  from  choice  as  from  actual  inability  to  support  their  families  and 
rear  and  educate  their  children  out  of  the  produce  of  their  exhausted 
lands — once  fertile,  but  rendered  barren  and  unproductive  by  a  ruinous 
system  of  cultivation. 

"And  how  greatly  is  this  distress  heightened,  in  witnessing,  as  we 
often  do,  the  successions  and  reverses  of  this  struggle  between  going 
and  staying,  on  the  part  of  many  emigrants.  And  how  many  are  there, 
who  after  removing,  remain  only  a  few  years,  and  then  return  to  seize 
again  upon  a  portion  of  their  native  land,  and  die  where  they  were 
born.  How  strangely  does  it  remind  us  of  the  poor  shipwrecked  mari 
ner,  who,  touching  in  the  midst  of  the  storm  the  shore,  lays  hold  of  it, 
but  is  borne  seaward  by  the  receding  wave;  but  struggling  back,  torn 
and  lacerated,  he  grasps  again  the  rock,  with  bleeding  hands,  and  still 
clings  to  it,  as  a  last  and  forlorn  hope.  Nor  is  this  to  be  wondered  at. 
Perhaps  it  was  the  home  of  his  childhood — the  habitation  of  his  fathers 
for  past  generations — the  soil  upon  which  had  been  expended  the 
savings  and  nourishment,  the  energies  and  virtues  of  a  long  life — 'the 
sweat  of  the  living,  and  the  ashes  of  the  dead/ 

"Oh!  how  hard  to  break  such  ties  as  these. 

"This  is  no  gloomy  picture  of  the  imagination;  but  a  faithful  repre 
sentation  of  what  most  of  us  know  and  feel  to  be  true.  Who  is  it  that 
has  not  had  some  acquaintance  or  neighbour — some  friend,  perhaps 
some  relative,  forced  into  this  current  of  emigration,  and  obliged  from 
necessity,  in  the  evening,  probably,  of  a  long  life,  to  abandon  his  State 
and  friends,  and  the  home  of  his  fathers  and  childhood,  to  seek  a  pre 
carious  subsistence  in  the  supposed  El  Dorados  of  the  West?" 

This  is  a  terrible  picture,  and  yet  it  is  but  the  index  to  one  still 
worse  that  must  follow  in  its  train.  Well  does  the  hon.  speaker 
say  that — 

"There  is  another  evil  attending  this  continual  drain  of  our  popula 
tion  to  the  West,  next  in  importance  to  the  actual  loss  of  the  population 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  101 

itself,  and  that  is,  its  tendency  to  continue  and  enlarge  our  wretched 
system  of  cultivation. 

"The  moment  some  persons  feel  assured  that  for  present  gain  they 
can  exhaust  the  fertility  of  their  lands  in  the  old  States,  and  then 
abandon  them  for  those  in  the  West,  which,  being  rich,  require  neither 
the  aid  of  science  nor  art,  the  natural  tendency  is  at  once  to  give  over 
all  efforts  at  improvement  themselves,  and  kill  their  land  as  quickly  as^ 
possible — then  sell  it  for  what  it  will  bring  or  abandon  it  as  a  waste. 
And  such  will  be  found  to  be  the  case  with  too  many  of  the  emigrants 
from  the  lowlands  of  Virginia/' 

Another  distinguished  Virginian,  Mr.  Ruffin,  in  urging  an  effort 
to  restore  the  lands  that  have  been  exhausted,  and  to  bring  into 
activity  the  rich  ones  that  have  never  been  drained,  estimates  the 
advantages  to  be  derived  by  Lower  Virginia  alone  at  $500,000,000. 
"  The  strength,  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral,  as  well  as  the 
revenue  of  the  commonwealth,  will,"  he  says, 

"  Soon  derive  new  and  great  increase  from  the  growing  improve 
ments  of  that  one  and  the  smallest  of  the  great  divisions  of  her  terri 
tory,  which  was  the  poorest  by  natural  constitution — still  more  the 
poorest  by  long  exhausting  tillage — its  best  population  gone  or  going 
away,  and  the  remaining  portion  sinking  into  apathy  and  degradation, 
and  having  no  hope  left  except  that  which  was  almost  universally 
entertained  of  fleeing  from  the  ruined  country  and  renewing  the  like 
work  of  destruction  on  the  fertile  lands  of  the  far  West." 

If  we  look  farther  South,  we  find  the  same  state  of  affairs. 
North  Carolina  abounds  in  rich  lands,  undrained  and  uncultivated, 
and  coal  and  iron  ore  abound.  Her  area  is  greater  than  that  of 
Ireland,  and  yet  her  population  is  but  868,000  ;  and  it  has  in 
creased  only  130,000  in  twenty  years,  and,  from  1830  to  1840, 
the  increase  was  only  16,000.  In  South  Carolina,  men  have  been 
everywhere  doing  precisely  what  has  been  described  in  reference 
to  Virginia  j  and  yet  the  State  has,  says  Governor  Seabrook,  in 
his  address  to  the  State  Agricultural  Society,  "  millions  of  un 
cleared  acres  of  unsurpassed  fertility,  which  seem  to  solicit  a  trial 
of  their  powers  from  the  people  of  the  plantation  States." 
"  In  her  borders,"  he  continues,  "  there  is  scarcely  a  vegetable 
product  essential  to  the  human  race  that  cannot  be  furnished." 
Marl  and  lime  abound,  millions  of  acres  of  rich  meadow-land 
remain  in  a  state  of  nature,  and  "  the  seashore  parishes,"  he  adds, 
"  possess  unfailing  supplies  of  salt  mud,  salt  grass,  and  shell-lime." 


102  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

So  great,  nevertheless,  was  the  tendency  to  the  abandonment  of  the 
land,  that  in  the  ten  years  from  1830  to  1840  the  white  popula 
tion  increased  but  1000  and  the  black  but  12,000,  whereas  the  na 
tural  increase  would  have  given  150,000  ! 

Allowing  Virginia,  at  the  close  of  the  Revolution,  600,000  peo 
ple,  she  should  now  have,  at  the  usual  rate  of  increase,  and  exclud 
ing  all  allowance  for  immigration,  4,000,000,  or  one  to  every  ten 
acres ;  and  no  one  at  all  familiar  with  the  vast  advantages  of  the 
state  can  doubt  her  capability  of  supporting  more  than  thrice  that 
number.*  Nevertheless,  the  total  number  in  1850  was  but 
1,424,000,  and  the  increase  in  twenty  years  had  been  but 
200,000,  when  it  should  have  been  1,200,000.  If  the  reader 
desire  to  know  what  has  become  of  all  these  people,  he  may  find 
most  of  them  among  the  millions  now  inhabiting  Alabama  and 
Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Texas,  and  Arkansas;  and  if  he  would 
know  why  they  are  now  there  to  be  found,  the  answer  to  the  ques 
tion  may  be  given  in  the  words — "  They  borrowed  from  the  earth, 
and  they  did  not  repay,  and  therefore  she  expelled  them."  It  has 
been  said,  and  truly  said,  that  tl  the  nation  which  commences  by 
exporting  food  will  end  by  exporting  men." 

When  men  come  together  and  combine  their  efforts,  they  are 
enabled  to  bring  into  activity  all  the  vast  and  various  powers 
of  the  earth;  and  the  more  they  come  together,  the  greater  is  the 
value  of  land,  the  greater  the  demand  for  labour,  the  higher  its 
price,  and  the  greater  the  freedom  of  man.  When,  on  the  con 
trary,  they  separate  from  each  other,  the  greater  is  the  tendency 
to  a  decline  in  the  value  of  land,  the  less  is  the  value  of  labour, 
and  the  less  the  freedom  of  man.  Such  being  the  case,  if  we  de 
sire  to  ascertain  the  ultimate  cause  of  the  existence  of  the  domestic 
slave  trade,  it  would  seem  to  be  necessary  only  to  ascertain  the 
cause  of  the  exhaustion  of  the  land.  The  reason  usually  assigned 
for  this  will  be  found  in  the  following  passage,  extracted  from  one 
of  the  English  journals  of  the  day  : — 


*  The  superficial  area  of  the  State  is  64,000  square  miles,  being  greater  thau 
that  of  England,  and  double  that  of  Ireland. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  103 

"The  mode  of  agriculture  usually  coincident  with  the  employment 
of  slave  labour  is  essentially  exhaustive,  and  adapted  therefore  only  to 
the  virgin  richness  of  a  newly-colonized  soil.  The  slave  can  plant, 
and  dig,  and  hoe :  he  works  rudely  and  lazily  with  rude  tools :  and 
his  unwilling  feet  tread  the  same  path  of  enforced  labour  day  after 
day.  But  slave  labour  is  not  adapted  to  the  operations  of  scientific 
agriculture,  which  restores  its  richness  to  a  wornout  soil ;  and  it  is 
found  to  be  a  fact  that  the  planters  of  the  Northern  slave  States,  as, 
e,  g.,  Virginia,  gradually  desert  the  old  seats  of  civilization,  and  ad 
vance  further  and  further  into  the  yet  untilled  country.  Tobacco  was 
the  great  staple  of  Virginian  produce  for  many  years  after  that  beau 
tiful  province  was  colonized  by  Englishmen.  It  has  exhausted  the  soil ; 
grain  crops  have  succeeded,  and  been  found  hardly  less  exhaustive ;  and 
emigration  of  both  white  and  coloured  population  to  the  West  and  South 
has  taken  place  to  a  very  large  extent.  The  result  may  be  told  in  the 
words  of  an  American  witness : — '  That  part  of  Virginia  which  lies  upon 
tide  waters  presents  an  aspect  of  universal  decay.  Its  population  dimi 
nishes,  and  it  sinks  day  by  day  into  a  lower  depth  of  exhaustion  and 
poverty.  The  country  between  tide  waters  and  the  Blue  Ridge  is  fast 
passing  into  the  same  condition.  Mount  Vernon  is  a  desert  waste  ; 
Monticello  is  little  better,  and  the  same  circumstances  which  have  de 
solated  the  lands  of  Washington  and  Jefferson  have  impoverished  every 
planter  in  the  State.  Hardly  any  have  escaped,  save  the  owners  of  the 
rich  bottom  lands  along  James  River,  the  fertility  of  which  it  seems 
difficult  utterly  to  destroy/*  Now  a  Virginia  planter  stands  in  much 
the  same  relation  to  his  plantation  as  an  absentee  Irish  landlord  to  his 
estate ;  the  care  of  the  land  is  in  each  case  handed  over  to  a  middle 
man,  who  is  anxious  to  screw  out  of  it  as  large  a  return  of  produce  or 
rent  as  possible ;  and  pecuniary  embarrassment  is  in  both  cases  the 
result.  But  as  long  as  every  pound  of  cotton  grown  on  the  Missis 
sippi  and  the  Red  River  finds  eager  customers  in  Liverpool,  the  price 
of  slaves  in  those  districts  cannot  fail  to  keep  up.  In  many  cases  the 
planter  of  the  Northern  slave  States  emigrates  to  a  region  where  he 
can  employ  his  capital  of  thews. and  sinews  more  profitably  than  at 
home.  In  many  others,  he  turns  his  plantation  into  an  establishment 
for  slave  breeding,  and  sells  his  rising  stock  for  labour  in  the  cotton- 
field." — Prospective  Review  Nov.  1852. 

Unhappily,  however,  for  this  reasoning  precisely  the  same  ex 
haustion  is  visible  in  the  Northern  States,  as  the  reader  may  see 
by  a  perusal  of  the  statements  on  this  subject  given  by  Professor 
Johnson,  in  his  "  Notes  on  North  America/'  of  which  the  follow 
ing  is  a  specimen  : — 

"Exhaustion  has  diminished  the  produce  of  the  land,  formerly  the 
great  staple  of  the  country.  When  the  wheat  fell  off,  barley,  which 
at  first  yielded  fifty  or  sixty  bushels,  was  raised  year  after  year,  till 
the  land  fell  away  from  this,  and  became  full  of  weeds/' — Vol.  i.  259. 

*  Despotism  in  America,  127. 


104  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

Rotation  of  crops  cannot  take  place  at  a  distance  from  market. 
The  exhaustive  character  of  the  system  is  well  shown  in  the  fol 
lowing  extract : — 

"  In  the  State  of  New  York  there  are  some  twelve  million  acres  of 
improved  land,  which  includes  all  meadows  and  enclosed  pastures. 
This  area  employs  about  five  hundred  thousand  labourers,  being  an 
average  of  twenty-four  acres  to  the  hand.  At  this  ratio,  the  number 
of  acres  of  improved  land  in  the  United  States  is  one  hundred  and 
twenty  millions.  But  New  York  is  an  old  and  more  densely  popu 
lated  State  than  an  average  in  the  Union  ;  and  probably  twenty-five 
acres  per  head  is  ajuster  estimate  for  the  whole  country.  At  this 
rate,  the  aggregate  is  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  millions.  Of  these 
improved  lands,  it  is  confidently  believed  that  at  least  four-fifths  are 
now  suffering  deterioration  in  a  greater  or  less  degree. 

"  The  fertility  of  some,  particularly  in  the  planting  States,  is  pass 
ing  rapidly  away  ;  in  others,  the  progress  of  exhaustion  is  so  slow  as 
hardly  to  be  observed  by  the  cultivators  themselves.  To  keep  within 
the  truth,  the  annual  income  from  the  soil  may  be  said  to  be  diminished 
ten  cents  an  acre  on  one  hundred  million  acres,  or  four-fifths  of  the 
whole. 

"  This  loss  of  income  is  ten  millions  of  dollars,  and  equal  to  sinking 
a  capital  of  one  hundred  and  sixty-six  million  six  hundred  and  sixty- 
six  thousand  dollars  a  year,  paying  six  per  cent,  annual  interest. 
That  improved  farming  lands  may  justly  be  regarded  as  capital,  and 
a  fair  investment  when  paying  six  per  cent,  interest,  and  perfectly  safe, 
no  one  will  deny.  This  deterioration  is  not  unavoidable,  for  thousands 
of  skilful  farmers  have  taken  fields,  poor  in  point  of  natural  produc 
tiveness,  and,  instead  of  diminishing  their  fertility,  have  added  ten 
cents  an  acre  to  their  annual  income,  over  and  above  all  expenses.  If 
this  wise  and  improving  system  of  rotation  tillage  and  husbandry 
were  universally  adopted,  or  applied  to  the  one  hundred  million  acres 
now  being  exhausted,  it  would  be  equivalent  to  creating  each  year  an 
additional  capital  of  one  hundred  and  sixty-six  millions  six  hundred 
and  sixty-six  thousand  dollars,  and  placing  it  in  permanent  real  estate, 
where  it  would  pay  six  per  cent,  annual  interest.  For  all  practical 
purposes,  the  difference  between  the  two  systems  is  three  hundred  and 
thirty-three  millions  three  hundred  and  thirty-three  thousand  dollars  a 
year  to  the  country. 

"  Eight  million  acres  [in  the  State  of  New  York]  are  in  the  hands  of 
three  hundred  thousand  persons,  who  still  adhere  to  the  colonial  prac 
tice  of  extracting  from  the  virgin  soil  all  it  will  yield,  so  long  as  it  will 
pay  expenses  to  crop  it,  and  then  leave  it  in  a  thin,  poor  pasture  for  a 
term  of  years.  Some  of  these  impoverished  farms,  which  seventy-five 
years  ago  produced  from  twenty  to  thirty  bushels  of  wheat,  on  an  ave 
rage,  per  acre,  now  yield  only  from  five  to  eight  bushels.  In  an  exceed 
ingly  interesting  work  entitled  '  American  Husbandry/  published  in 
London  in  1775,  and  written  by  an  American,  the  following  remarks 
may  be  found  on  page  98,  vol.  i.: — 'Wheat,  in  many  parts  of  the  pro 
vince,  (New  York,)  yields  a  larger  produce  than  is  common  in  Eng- 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGX.  105 

land.  Upon  good  lands  about  Albany,  where  the  climate  is  the  coldest 
in  the  country,  they  sow  two  bushels  and  better  upon  an  acre,  and  reap 
from  twenty  to  forty  ;  the  latter  quantity,  however,  is  not  often  had,  but 
from  twenty  to  thirty  are  common;  and  with  such  bad  husbandry  as 
would  not  yield  the  like  in  England,  and  much  less  in  Scotland.  This 
is  owing  to  the  richness  and  freshness  of  the  land/ 

"According  to  the  State  census  of  1845,  Albany  county  now  produces 
only  seven  and  a  half  bushels  of  wheat  per  acre,  although  its  farmers 
are  on  tide  water  and  near  the  capital  of  the  State,  with  a  good  home 
market,  and  possess  every  facility  for  procuring  the  most  valuable  fer 
tilizers.  Dutchess  county,  also  on  the  Hudson  River,  produces  an 
average  of  only  five  bushels  per  acre ;  Columbia,  six  bushels ;  Rens- 
selaer,  eight ;  Westchester,  seven  ;  which  is  higher  than  the  average 
of  soils  that  once  gave  a  return  larger  than  the  wheat  lands  of  England 
even  with  '  bad  husbandry.' 

"  Fully  to  renovate  the  eight  million  acres  of  partially  exhausted 
lands  in  the  State  of  New  York,  will  cost  at  least  an  average  of  twelve 
dollars  and  a  half  per  acre,  or  an  aggregate  of  one  hundred  millions 
of  dollars.  It  is  not  an  easy  task  to  replace  all  the  bone-earth,  potash, 
sulphur,  magnesia,  and  organized  nitrogen  in  mould  consumed  in  a 
field  which  has  been  unwisely  cultivated  fifty  or  seventy-five  years. 
Phosphorus  is  not  an  abundant  mineral  anywhere,  and  his  sub-soil  is 
about  the  only  resource  of  the  husbandman  after  his  surface-soil  has 
lost  most  of  its  phosphates.  The  three  hundred  thousand  persons  that 
cultivate  these  eight  million  acres  of  impoverished  soils  annually  pro 
duce  less  by  twenty-five  dollars  each  than  they  would  if  the  land  had 
not  been  injured. 

"  The  aggregate  of  this  loss  to  the  State  and  the  world  is  seven  mil 
lion  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  per  annum,  or  more  than  seven  per 
cent,  interest  on  what  it  would  cost  to  renovate  the  deteriorated  soils. 
There  is  no  possible  escape  from  this  oppressive  tax  on  labour  of  seven 
million  five  hundred  thousand  dollars,  but  to  improve  the  land,  or  run 
off  and  leave  it."— Potent  Office  Report,  1849 

It  is  not  slavery  that  produces  exhaustion  of  the  soil,  but  ex 
haustion  of  the  soil  that  causes  slavery  to  continue.  The  people 
of  England  rose  from  slavery  to  freedom  as  the  land  was  improved 
and  rendered  productive,  and  as  larger  numbers  of  men  were  en 
abled  to  obtain  subsistence  from  the  same  surface ;  and  it  was  pre 
cisely  as  the  land  thus  acquired  value  that  they  became  free. 
Such,  too,  has  been  the  case  with  every  people  that  has  been 
enabled  to  return  to  the  land  the  manure  yielded  by  its  products, 
because  of  their  having  a  market  at  home.  On  the  contrary,  there 
is  no  country  in  the  world,  in  which  men  have  been  deprived  of  the 
power  to  improve  their  land,  in  which  slavery  has  not  been  main 
tained,  to  be  aggravated  in  intensity  as  the  land  became  more  and 


106 

more  exhausted,  as  we  see  to  have  been  the  case  in  the  West  Indies. 
It  is  to  this  perpetual  separation  from  each  other  that  is  due  the 
poverty  and  weakness  of  the  South.  At  the  close  of  the  Revolu 
tion,  the  now  slave  States  contained  probably  1,600,000  people, 
and  those  States  contained  about  120,000,000  of  acres,  giving  an 
average  of  about  eighty  acres  to  each.  In  1850,  the  population 
had  grown  to  8,500,000,  scattered  over  more  than  300,000,000  of 
acres,  giving  about  forty  acres  to  each.  The  consequence  of  this 
dispersion  is  that  the  productive  power  is  very  small,  as  is  here 
seen  in  an  estimate  for  1850,  taken  from  a  Southern  journal  of 
high  reputation  : — * 

Cotton 105,600,000 

Tobacco 15,000,000 

Rice 3,000,000 

Naval  stores 2,000,000 

Sugar 12,396,150 

Hemp 695,840  138,691,990 

[f  we  now  add  for  food  an  equal  amount,  and  this  is 

certainly  much  in  excess  of  the  truth 138,691,990 

And  for  all  other  products 22,616,020 

We  obtain $300,000,000 

as  the  total  production  of  eight  millions  and  a  half  of  people,  or 
about  $35  per  head.  The  total  production  of  the  Union  in  1850 
cannot  have  been  short  of  2500  millions;  and  if  we  deduct  from 
that  sum  the  above  quantity,  we  shall  have  remaining  2150 
millions  as  the  product  of  fourteen  millions  and  a  half  of  Northern 
people,  or  more  than  four  times  as  much  per  head.  The  difference 
is  caused  by  the  fact  that  at  the  North  artisans  have  placed  them 
selves  near  to  the  farmer,  and  towns  and  cities  have  grown  up, 
and  exchanges  are  made  more  readily,  and  the  farmer  is  not  to  the 
same  extent  obliged  to  exhaust  his  land,  and  dispersion  therefore 
goes  on  more  slowly ;  and  there  is,  in  many  of  the  States,  an  ex 
tensive  demand  for  those  commodities  of  which  the  earth  yields 
largely,  such  as  potatoes,  cabbages,  turnips,  &c.  &c.  With  each 

*  De  Bow's  Commercial  Review,  new  series,  vol.  ii.  137. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  107 

step  in  the  process  of  coming  together  at  the  North,  men  tend  to 
become  more  free;  whereas  the  dispersion  of  the  South  produces 
everywhere  the  trade  in  slaves  of  which  the  world  complains,  and 
which  would  soon  cease  to  exist  if  the  artisan  could  be  brought  to 
take  his  place  by  the  side  of  the  producer  of  food  and  cotton.  Why 
he  cannot  do  so  may  be  found  in  the  words  of  a  recent  speech  of 
Mr.  Cardwell,  member  of  Parliament  from  Liverpool,  congratulat 
ing  the  people  of  England  on  the  fact  that  free  trade  had  so  greatly 
damaged  the  cotton  manufacture  of  this  country,  that  the  domestic 
consumption  was  declining  from  year  to  year.  In  this  is  to  be 
found  the  secret  of  the  domestic  slave  trade  of  the  South,  and  its 
weakness,  now  so  manifest.  The  artisan  has  been  everywhere  the 
ally  of  the  farmer,  and  the  South  has  been  unable  to  form  that 
alliance,  the  consequences  of  which  are  seen  in  the  fact  that  it  is 
always  exporting  men  and  raw  materials,  and  exhausting  its  soil 
and  itself :  and  the  greater  the  tendency  to  exhaustion,  the  greater 
is  the  pro-slavery  feeling.  That  such  should  be  the  case  is  most 
natural.  The  man  who  exhausts  his  land  attaches  to  it  but  little 
value,  and  he  abandons  it,  but  he  attaches  much  value  to  the 
slave  whom  he  can  carry  away  with  him.  The  pro-slavery  feeling 
made  its  appearance  first  in  the  period  between  1830  and  1840. 
Up  to  1832,  there  had  existed  a  great  tendency  in  Maryland,  Vir 
ginia,  and  Kentucky  toward  freedom,  but  that  disappeared ;  and 
the  reason  why  it  did  so  may  be  seen  in  the  greatly  increased  tend 
ency  to  the  abandonment  of  the  older  tobacco  and  cotton  growing 
States,  as  here  shown  : —  ' 

Total  population :        1820.  1830.  1840.  1850. 

Virginia 1,065,379   1,211,405   1,239,797    1,424,863 

South  Carolina 502,741       581,185      594,398      668,247 

Ratio  of  increase : 

Virginia 13-6  2-3  15-2 

South  Carolina 15-6  2-3  12-4 

With  the  increase  in  the  export  of  slaves  to  the  South,  the  negro 
population  declined  in  its  ratio  of  increase,  whereas  it  has  grown 


108  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

with  the  growth  of  the  power  of  the  slave  to  remain  at  home,  a-s  is 
here  shown  : — 

1820.       1830.      1840.       1850. 

Total  black  population  1,779,885  2,328,642 '2,873,703  3,591,000 
Ratio  of  increase 30  308  24  25 

We  see  thus  that  the  more  the  black  population  can  remain  at 
home,  the  more  rapidly  they  increase ;  and  the  reason  why  such 
is  the  case  is,  that  at  home  they  are  among  their  own  people,  by 
whom  they  have  been  known  from  infancy,  and  are  of  course  bet 
ter  fed  and  clothed,  more  tenderly  treated,  and  more  lightly  worked, 
with  far  greater  tendency  toward  freedom.  It  would  thence  appear 
that  if  we  desire  to  bring  about  the  freedom  of  the  negro,  we  must 
endeavour  to  arrest  the  domestic  slave  trade,  and  enable  the  slave 
and  his  master  to  remain  at  home ;  and  to  do  this  we  must  look  to 
the  causes  of  the  difference  in  the  extent  of  the  trade  in  the  periods 
above  referred  to.  Doing  this,  we  shall  find  that  from  1820  to 
1830  there  was  a  decided  tendency  toward  bringing  the  artisan  to 
the  side  of  the  ploughman;  whereas  from  1833  to  1840  the  tendency 
was  very  strong  in  the  opposite  direction,  and  so  continued  until 
1842,  at  which  time  a  change  took  place  and  continued  until  near 
the  close  of  the  decennial  period,  when  our  present  revenue  system 
came  fully  into  operation.  The  artisan  has  now  ceased  to  come  to 
the  side  of  the  planter.  Throughout  the  country  cotton  and  woollen 
mills  and  furnaces  and  foundries  have  been  closed,  and  women  and 
children  who  were  engaged  in  performing  the  lighter  labour  of  con 
verting  cotton  into  cloth  are  now  being  sold  for  the  heavier  labour 
of  the  cotton-field,  as  is  shown  by  the  following  advertisement, 
now  but  'a  few  weeks  old  : — 

SALE  OF  NEGROES. — The  negroes  belonging  to  the  Saluda  Manu 
facturing  Company  were  sold  yesterday  for  one-fourth  cash,  the  ba 
lance  in  one  and  two  years,  with  interest,  and  averaged  $599.  Boys 
from  16  to  25  brought  $900  to  $1000.— Columbia  (S.  C.)  Banner, 
Dec.  31,  1852. 

As  a  necessary  consequence  of  this,  the  domestic  slave  trade  is 
now  largely  increasing,  as  is  shown  by  the  following  extract  from 
a  recent  journal : — 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  109 

"The  emigration  to  the  southern  portion  of  Arkansas,  Louisiana, 
and  Texas,  during  the  past  fall,  has  been  unusually  large,  and  the  tide 
which  flows  daily  through  our  streets  indicates  that  the  volume  abates 
but  little,  if  any.  On  the  opposite  bank  of  the  river  are  encamped 
nearly  fifty  wagons,  with  probably  not  less  than  two  hundred  and 
fifty  souls.  Each  night,  for  a  fortnight,  there  have  been,  on  an  ave 
rage,  not  less  than  twenty-five  wagons  encamped  there  ;  and  notwith 
standing  two  hand  ferry-boats  have  been  constantly  plying  between 
the  shores,  the  hourly  accession  to  the  number  makes  the  diminution 
scarcely  perceptible/' — Little  Rock  (Ark.}  Gazette,  Dec.  3,  1852. 

Had  the  member  for  Liverpool  been  aware  that  a  decline  in  the 
tendency  toward  bringing  the  cotton-mill  to  the  cotton-field  was 
accompanied  by  increased  exhaustion  of  the  land,  increased  im 
poverishment,  and  increased  inability  to  bring  into  action  the  rich 
soils  of  the  older  States,  and  that  with  each  such  step  there  arose 
an  increased  necessity  for  the  expulsion  of  the  people  of  those 
States,  accompanied  by  an  increased  sacrifice  of  life  resulting  from 
the  domestic  slave  trade,  he  would  certainly  have  hesitated  before 
congratulating  Parliament  on  an  occurrence  so  hostile  to  the  pro 
gress  of  freedom. 

That  the  export  of  negroes,  with  its  accompanying  violation  of 
the  rights  of  parents  and  children,  and  with  its  natural  tendency 
toward  a  total  forgetfulness  of  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  tie,  has 
its  origin  in  the  exhaustion  of  the  land,  there  can  be  no  doubt — 
and  that  that,  in  its  turn,  has  its  origin  in  the  necessity  for  a  de 
pendence  on  distant  markets,  is  quite  as  free  from  doubt.  The 
man  who  must  go  to  a  distance  with  his  products  cannot  raise 
potatoes,  turnips,  or  hay.  He  must  raise  the  less  bulky  articles, 
wheat  or  cotton,  and  he  must  take  from  his  land  all  the  elements 
of  which  wheat  or  cotton  is  composed,  and  then  abandon  it.  In 
addition  to  this,  he  must  stake  all  his  chances  of  success  in  his 
year's  cultivation  on  a  single  crop;  and  what  are  the  effects  of  this 
is  seen  in  the  following  paragraph  in  relation  to  the  wheat  cultiva 
tion  of  Virginia  in  the  last  season  : — 

"  Never  did  I  know  in  this  State  such  a  destruction  of  the  wheat 
crop.  I  have  just  returned  from  Albemarle,  one  of  th^pbest  counties. 
The  joint-worm,  a  new  enemy  of  three  year's  known  existence  there, 
has  injured  every  crop,  and  destroyed  many  in  that  and  other  coun 
ties  both  sides  and  along  the  Blue  Ridge.  I  saw  many  fields  that 
would  not  yield  more  than  seed,  and  not  a  few  from  which  not  one 

10 


110 

pock  per  acre  could  be  calculated  upon.  I  saw  more  than  one  field 
without  a  head.  The  most  fortunate  calculate  upon  a  half  crop  only. 
Corn  is  backward  on  the  lower  James  River,  embracing  my  own 
farm.  I  have  heard  to-day  from  my  manager  that  the  caterpillar  has 
made  its  appearance,  and  must  in  the  late  wheat  do  serious  damage." 

That  State  is  not  permitted  to  do  any  thing  but  grow  wheat  and 
tobacco,  both  of  which  she  must  export,  and  the  larger  the  export 
the  smaller  are  the  returns,  under  the  system  of  "  unlimited  com 
petition"  for  the  sale  of  raw  products,  and  limited  competition  for 
the  purchase  of  manufactured  ones,  which  it  is  the  object  of 
British  policy  to  establish.  Not  only  is  Virginia  limited  in  the 
application  of  her  labour,  but  she  is  also  greatly  limited  in  the 
extent  of  her  market,  because  of  the  unequal  distribution  of  the 
proceeds  of  the  sales  of  her  products.  The  pound  of  tobacco  for 
which  the  consumer  pays  6s.  ($1.44,)  yields  him  less  than  six  cents, 
the  whole  difference  being  absorbed  by  the  people  who  stand 
between  him  and  the  consumer,  and  who  contribute  nothing  toward 
the  production  of  his  commodity.*  Now,  it  is  quite  clear  that  if 
the  consumer  and  he  stood  face  to  face  with  each  other,  he  would 
receive  all  that  was  paid,  and  that  while  the  one  bought  at  lower 
prices,  the  other  would  sell  at  higher  ones,  and  both  would  grow 
rich.  The  difficulty  with  him  is  that  not  only  is  his  land  ex 
hausted,  but  he  receives  but  a  very  small  portion  of  the  price  paid 
for  its  products,  and  thus  is  he,  like  the  labourer  of  Jamaica,  ex 
hausted  by  reason  of  the  heavy  taxation  to  which  lie  is  subjected 
for  the  support  of  foreign  merchants  and  foreign  governments. 
As  a  consequence  of  all  this  his  land  has  little  value,  and  he  finds 
himself  becoming  poorer  from  year  to  year,  and  each  year  he  has 
to  sell  a  negro  for  the  payment  of  the  tax  on  his  tobacco  and 


*  The  tobacco  grower  "has  the  mortification  of  seeing  his  tobacco,  bought  from 
him  at  sixpence  in  bond,  charged  three  shillings  duty,  and  therefore  costing  the 
broker  but  3a.  6d.  and  selling  in  the  shops  of  London  at  ten,  twelve,  and  sixteen 
shillings."  (Urquhart's  Turkey,  194.)  The  same  writer  informs  his  readers  that 
the  tobacco  dearers  were  greatly  alarmed  when  it  was  proposed  that  the  duty 
should  be  reduced,  because  then  everybody  with  £10  capital  could  set  up  a  shop. 
The  slave  who  works  in  the  tobacco-field  is  among  the  largest  taxpayers  for  the 
maintenance  of  foreign  traders  and  foreign  governments. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  Ill 

his  wheat  to  which  he  is  thus  subjected,  until  he  has  at  length  to 
go  himself.  If  the  reader  desire  to  study  the  working  of  this  sys 
tem  of  taxation,  he  cannot  do  better  than  read  the  first  chapter  of 
"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  containing  the  negotiation,  between  Haley 
and  Mr.  Shelby  for  the  transfer  of  Uncle  Tom,  resulting  in  the 
loss  of  his  life  in  the  wilds  of  Arkansas. 

The  more  the  necessity  for  exhausting  land  and  for  selling 
negroes,  the  cheaper,  however,  will  be  wheat  and  cotton.  Uncle 
Tom  might  have  remained  at  home  had  the  powers  of  the  land  been 
maintained  and  had  Virginia  been  enabled  to  avail  herself  of  her 
vast  resources  in  coal,  iron  ore,  water-power,  &c. ;  but  as  she  could 
not  do  this,  he  had  to  go  to  Arkansas  to  raise  cotton  :  and  the  larger 
the  domestic  slave  trade,  the  greater  must  be  the  decline  in  the  price 
of  that  great  staple  of  the  South.  At  no  period  was  that  trade  so 
large  as  in  that  from  1830  to  1840,  and  the  effects  are  seen  in  the 
following  comparative  prices  of  cotton  : — 
Crops,  1831  and  1832,  average  10*.  1841  and  1842,  average  7. 

The  export  of  negroes  declined  between  1842  and  1850,  and  the 
consequence  is  that  cotton  has  since  maintained  its  price.  With 
the  closing  of  Southern  mills  the  slave  trade  is  now  again  growing 
rapidly,  and  the  consequences  will  be  seen  in  a  large  decline  in 
the  price  of  that  important  product  of  Southern  labour  and  land. 

The  reader  will  now  observe  that  it  was  in  the  period  from  1830 
to  1840  that  the  tendency  to  emancipation  disappeared — that  it 
was  in  that  period  were  passed  various  laws  adverse  to  the  educa 
tion  of  negroes — that  it  was  in  that  period  there  was  the  greatest 
enlargement  of  the  domestic  slave  trade — and  the  greatest  decline 
in  the  price  of  cotton.  Having  remarked  these  things,  and  having 
satisfied  himself  that  they,  each  and  all,  have  their  origin  in  the 
fact  that  the  planter  is  compelled  to  depend  on  foreign  markets 
and  therefore  to  exhaust  his  land,  he  will  be  enabled  to  judge  of 
the  accuracy  of  the  view  contained  in  the  following  sentence  : — 

"  The  price  of  a  negro  on  Red  River  varies  with  the  price  of  cotton 
in  Liverpool,  and  whatever  tends  to  lower  the  value  of  the  staple  here, 
not  only  confers  an  inestimable  advantage  on  our  own  manufactur 
ing  population,  but  renders  slave  labour  less  profitable,  and  therefore 
less  permanent  in  Alabama," — Prospective  Review,  No,  xxxii.  512, 


112  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

It  would  be  fortunate  if  philanthropy  and  pecuniary  profit 
could  thus  be  made  to  work  together,  but  such  unhappily  is  not 
the  case.  When  men  are  enabled  to  come  nearer  to  each  other  and 
combine  their  efforts,  and  towns  arise,  land  acquires  great  value  and 
gradually  becomes  divided,  and  with  each  step  in  this  direction  the 
negro  loses  his  importance  in  the  eye  of  his  owner.  When,  how 
ever,  men  are  forced  to  abandon  the  land  they  have  exhausted,  it 
becomes  consolidated,  and  the  moveable  chattel  acquires  import 
ance  in  the  eyes  of  his  emigrant  owner.  At  death,  the  land  cannot, 
under  these  circumstances,  be  divided,  and  therefore  the  negroes 
must ;  and  hence  it  is  that  such  advertisements  as  the  following 
are  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  system  that  looks  to  cheap 
wheat,  cheap  sugar,  and  cheap  cotton. 

HIGH  PRICE  OF  NEGROES. — We  extract  the  following  from  the  Lan 
caster  (S.  C.)  Ledger  of  the  5th  January  last : — 

We  attended  the  sale  of  negroes  belonging  to  the  estate  of  the  late 
S.  Beekman,  on  the  22d  of  last  month,  and  were  somewhat  astonished 
at  the  high  price  paid  for  negroes. 

Negro  men  brought  from  $800  to  $1000,  the  greater  number  at  or 
near  the  latter  price.  One  (a  blacksmith)  brought  $1425. 

We  learn  from  the  Winsboro'  Register,  that  on  Monday,  the  3d  inst., 
a  large  sale  of  negroes  was  made  by  the  Commissioner  in  Equity  for 
Fairfield  district,  principally  the  property  of  James  Gibson,  deceased. 
The  negroes  were  only  tolerably  likely,  and  averaged  about  $620  each. 
The  sales  were  made  on  a  credit  of  twelve  months. — Charleston  (S.  C.) 
Courier. 

The  more  the  planter  is  forced  to  depend  upon  tobacco  the  lower 
will  be  its  price  abroad,  and  the  more  he  must  exhaust  his  land. 
The  more  rapid  the  exhaustion  the  more  must  be  the  tendency  to 
emigrate.  The  more  the  necessity  for  depending  exclusively  on 
wheat,  the  greater  the  necessity  for  making  a  market  for  it  by 
raising  slaves  for  sale ;  and  in  several  of  the  older  Southern  States 
the  planter  now  makes  nothing  but  what  results  from  the  increase 
of  "  stock." 

Of  all  the  exporters  of  food  England  is  the  largest,  said  a  distin 
guished  English  merchant,  in  a  speech  delivered  some  years  since. 
In  some  parts  of  that  country  it  is  manufactured  into  iron,  and 
in  others  into  cloth,  in  order  that  it  may  travel  cheaply,  and  this 
is  quite  in  accordance  with  the  advice  of  Adam  Smith.  With 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  113 

a  view,  however,  to  prevent  other  nations  from  following  in  the 
course  so  strongly  urged  upon  them  by  that  great  man,  labour  has 
been  cheapened,  and  men  and  women,  boys  and  girls,  have  been 
accustomed  to  work  together  in  the  same  mine,  and  often  in  a 
state  of  entire  nudity  ;  while  other  women  and  children  have  been 
compelled  to  work  for  fourteen  or  sixteen  hours  a  day  for  six  days 
in  the  week,  and  for  small  wages,  in  the  mill  or  workshop — and 
this  has  been  done  in  accordance  with  the  advice  of  Mr.  Huskisson, 
who,  from  his  place  in  Parliament,  told  his  countrymen  that  in 
order  "  to  give  capital  a  fair  remuneration,  labour  must  be  kept 
down" — that  is,  the  labourer  must  be  deprived  of  the  power  to 
determine  for  himself  for  whom  he  would  work,  or  what  should  be 
his  reward.  It  was  needed,  as  was  then  declared  by  another  of  the 
most  eminent  statesmen  of  Britain,  "that  the  manufactures  of  all 
other  nations  should  be  strangled  in  their  infancy/'  and  such  has 
from  that  day  to  the  present  been  the  object  of  British  policy. 
Hence  it  is  that  England  is  now  so  great  an  exporter  of  food 
manufactured  into  cloth  and  iron.  The  people  of  Massachusetts 
manufacture  their  grain  into  fish,  cloth,  and  various  other  commo 
dities,  with  a  view  to  enable  it  cheaply  to  travel  to  market.  Those 
of  Illinois,  unable  to  convert  their  corn  into  coal  or  iron,  find  them 
selves  obliged  to  manufacture  it  into  pork.  The  Virginian  would 
manufacture  his  corn  and  his  wheat  into  cloth,  or  into  coal  and 
iron,  if  he  could,  but  this  he  cannot  do,  although  close  to  the  pro 
ducer  of  cotton,  and  occupying  a  land  abounding  in  all  the  raw- 
materials  of  which  machinery  is  composed;  and  having,  too,  abund 
ant  labour  power  that  runs  to  waste.  Why  he  cannot  do  it  is  that 
England  follows  the  advice  of  Mr.  Huskisson,  and  cheapens  labour 
with  a  view  to  prevent  other  nations  from  following  the  advice  of 
Adam  Smith.  The  whole  energies  of  the  State  are  therefore 
given  to  the  raising  of  tobacco  and  corn,  both  of  which  must  go 
abroad,  and  as  the  latter  cannot  travel  profitably  in  its  rude  state,  it 
requires  to  be  manufactured,  and  the  only  branch  of  manufacture 
permitted  to  the  Virginian  is  that  of  negroes,  and  hence  it  is  that 
their  export  is  so  large,  and  that  cotton  is  so  cheap. 

Widely  different  would  be  the  course  of  things  could  he  be  per- 

10* 


114  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

mitted  to  employ  a  reasonable  portion  of  his  people  in  the  develop 
ment  of  the  vast  resources  of  the  State — opening  mines,  erecting 
furnaces,  smelting  iron,  making  machinery,  and  building  mills. 
Fewer  persons  would  then  raise  corn  and  more  would  be  employed 
in  consuming  it,  and  the  price  at  home  would  then  rise  to  a  level 
with  that  in  the  distant  market,  and  thus  would  the  land  acquire 
value  while  the  cost  of  raising  negroes  would  be  increased.  Towns 
would  then  grow  up,  and  exchanges  would  be  made  on  the  spot, 
and  thus  would  the  planter  be  enabled  to  manure  his  land.  Labour 
would  become  more  productive,  and  there  would  be  more  commodi 
ties  to  be  given  in  exchange  for  labour;  and  the  more  rapid  the 
increase  in  the  amount  of  production  the  greater  would  be  the 
tendency  toward  enabling  the  labourer  to  determine  for  whom  he 
would  work  and  what  should  be  his  reward.  Population  would 
then  rapidly  increase,  and  land  would  become  divided,  and  the  little 
black  cultivator  of  cabbages  and  potatoes  would  be  seen  taking  the 
place  of  the  poor  white  owner  of  large  bodies  of  exhausted  land,  and 
thus  would  the  negro  tend  toward  freedom  as  his  master  became 
enriched.  Nothing  of  this  kind  is,  however,  likely  to  take  place 
so  long  as  the  Virginian  shall  continue  of  the  opinion  that  the  way 
to  wealth  lies  in  the  direction  of  taking  every  tiling  from  the  land 
and  returning  nothing  to  it — nor,  perhaps,  so  long  as  the  people 
of  England  shall  continue  in  the  determination  that  there  shall  be 
but  one  workshop  in  the  world,  and  carry  that  determination  into 
effect  by  "  keeping  labour  down,"  in  accordance  with  the  advice  of 
Mr.  Huskisson. 

The  tendency  to  the  abandonment  of  the  older  States  is  now  proba 
bly  greater  than  it  has  ever  been,  because  their  people  have  ceased 
to  build  mills  or  furnaces,  and  every  thing  looks  to  a  yet  more  per 
fect  exhaustion  of  the  soil.  The  more  they  abandon  the  land  the 
greater  is  the  anxiety  to  make  loans  in  England  for  the  purpose  of 
building  roads;  and  the  more  numerous  the  loans  the  more  rapid  is 
the  flight,  and  the  greater  the  number  of  negroes  brought  to  market. 

A  North  Carolina  paper  informs  its  readers  that — 

"  The  trading  spirit  is  fully  up.  A  few  days  since  Mr.  D.  W.  Bul 
lock  sold  to  Messrs.  Wm.  Norfleet,.  Robert  Norfleet,  and  John  S.  Dancj, 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  115 

plantation  and  18  negroes  for  $30,000.  Mr.  R.  R.  Bridges  to  Wm.  F. 
Dancy,  6  acres  near  town  for  $600.  At  a  sale  in  Wilson,  we  also 
understand,  negro  men  with  no  extra  qualifications  sold  as  high  as 
$1225." — Tarborough  Southerner. 

A  South  Carolina  editor  informs  his  readers  that 

"  At  public  auction  on  Thursday,  Thomas  Ryan  &  Son  sold  fifteen 
likely  negroes  for  $10,365,  or  an  average  of  $691.  Three  boys,  aged 
about  seventeen,  brought  the  following  sums,  viz.  $1065,  $1035, 
$1,010,  and  two  at  $1000— making  an  average  of  $1022.  Capers 
Ileyward  sold  a  gang  of  109  negroes  in  families.  Two  or  three 
families  averaged  from  $1000  to  $1100  for  each  individual ;  and  the 
entire  sale  averaged  $550.  C.  G.  Whitney  sold  two  likely  female 
house  servants— one  at  $1000,  the  other  at  $1190."—  Charleston 
Courier. 

Limited,  as  the  people  of  the  old  States  are  more  and  more  be 
coming,  to  the  raising  of  "stock"  as  the  sole  source  of  profit,  need 
we  be  surprised  to  see  the  pro-slavery  feeling  gaining  ground  from 
day  to  day,  as  is  here  shown  to  be  the  case  ? 

REMOVAL  OF  FREE  PERSONS  OF  COLOUR  FROM  VIRGINIA. — A  bill  has 
been  reported  in  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates,  which  provides  for 
the  appointment  of  overseers,  who  are  to  be  required  to  hire  out,  at 
public  auction,  all  free  persons  of  colour,  to  the  highest  bidder,  and  to 
pay  into  the  State  Treasury  the  sums  accruing  from  such  hire.  The 
sums  are  to  be  devoted  in  future  to  sending  free  persons  of  colour 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  State.  At  the  expiration  of  five  years,  all  free 
persons  of  colour  remaining  in  the  State  are  to  be  sold  into  slavery  to 
the  highest  bidder,  at  public  auction,  the  proceeds  of  such  sales  to  be 
paid  into  the  public  treasury,  provided  that  said  free  persons  of  colour 
shall  be  allowed  the  privilege  of  becoming  the  slaves  of  any  free  white 
person  whom  they  may  select,  on  the  payment  by  such  person  of  a 
fair  price. 

Twenty  years  since,  Virginia  was  preparing  for  the  emancipation 
of  the  slave.  Now,  she  is  preparing  for  the  enslavement  of  the 
free.  If  the  reader  would  know  the  cause  of  this  great  change,  he 
may  find  it  in  the  fact  that  man  has  everywhere  become  less  free 
as  land  has  become  less  valuable. 

Upon  whom,  now,  must  rest  the  responsibility  for  such  a  state 
of  things  as  is  here  exhibited  ?  Upon  the  planter  ?  He  exercises 
no  volition.  He  is  surrounded  by  coal  and  iron  ore,  but  the 
attempt  to  convert  them  into  iron  has  almost  invariably  been  fol 
lowed  by  ruin.  He  has  vast  powers  of  nature  ready  to  obey  his 
will,  yet  dare  he  not  purchase  a  spindle  or  a  loom  to  enable  him  to 


116  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

bring  into  use  his  now  waste  labour  power,  for  such  attempts  at 
bringing  the  consumer  to  the  side  of  the  producer  have  almost  in 
variably  ended  in  the  impoverishment  of  the  projector,  and  the  sale 
and  dispersion  of  his  labourers.  He  is  compelled  to  conform  his 
operations  to  the  policy  which  looks  to  having  but  one  workshop 
for  the  world ;  and  instead  of  civilizing  his  negroes  by  bringing 
them  to  work  in  combination,  he  must  barbarize  them  by  dispersion. 
A  creature  of  necessity,  he  cannot  be  held  responsible ;  but  the 
responsibility  must,  and  will,  rest  on  those  who  produce  that 
necessity. 

The  less  the  power  of  association  in  the  Northern  slave  States,  the 
more  rapid  must  be  the  growth  of  the  domestic  slave  trade,  the 
greater  must  be  the  decline  in  the  price  of  wheat,  cotton,  and  sugar, 
the  greater  must  be  the  tendency  to  the  passage  of  men  like  Uncle 
Tom,  and  of  women  and  children  too,  from  the  light  labour  of  the 
North  to  the  severe  labour  of  the  South  and  South-west — but,  the 
greater,  as  we  are  told,  must  be  the  prosperity  of  the  people  of 
England.  It  is  unfortunate  for  the  world  that  a  country  exercising 
so  much  influence  should  have  adopted  a  policy  so  adverse  to  the 
civilization  and  the  freedom  not  only  of  the  negro  race,  but  of  man 
kind  at  large.  There  seems,  however,  little  probability  of  a  change. 
Seeking  to  make  of  herself  a  great  workshop,  she  necessarily  desires 
that  all  the  rest  of  the  world  should  be  one  great  farm,  to  be  culti 
vated  by  men,  women,  and  children,  denied  all  other  means  of  em 
ployment.  This,  of  course,  forbids  association,  which  diminishes 
as  land  becomes  exhausted.  The  absence  of  association  forbids  the 
existence  of  schools  or  workshops,  books  or  instruction,  and  men 
become  barbarized,  when,  under  a  different  system,  they  might  and 
would  become  civilized.  The  tendency  to  freedom  passes  away,  as 
we  see  to  have  been  the  case  in  the  last  twenty  years — but  in  place 
of  freedom,  and  as  a  compensation  for  the  horrors  of  Jamaica  and 
of  the  domestic  slave  trade,  the  great  workshop  of  the  world  is  sup 
plied  with  cheap  grain,  cheap  tobacco,  cheap  sugar,  and  cheap 
cotton. 

Were  Adam  Smith  alive,  he  might,  and  probably  would,  take 
some  trouble  to  inform  his  countrymen  that  a  system  which  looked 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  117 

to  the  exhaustion  of  the  land  of  other  countries,  and  the  enslave 
ment  of  their  population,  was  "  a  manifest  violation  of  the  most 
sacred  rights  of  mankind ;"  but  since  his  day  the  doctrines  of  the 
"  Wealth  of  Nations"  have  been  discarded,  and  its  author  would  find 
himself  now  addressing  hearers  more  unwilling  than  were  even  the 
men  for  whom  he  wrote  eighty  years  since.  At  that  time  the  imagi 
nary  discovery  had  not  been  made  that  men  always  commenced  on  the 
rich  soils,  and  passed,  as  population  and  wealth  increased,  to  poorer 
ones ;  and  the  Malthusiau  law  of  population  was  yet  unthought 
of.  Now,  however,  whatever  tends  to  limit  the  growth  of  popula 
tion  is,  we  are  told,  to  be  regarded  as  a  great  good;  and  as  the  do 
mestic  slave  trade  accomplishes  that  object  at  the  same  time  that  it 
furnishes  cheap  cotton,  it  can  scarcely  be  expected  that  there  will 
be  any  change ;  and  yet,  unless  a  change  be  somewhere  made,  abroad 
or  at  home,  we  must  perforce  submit  to  the  continuance  of  the 
existing  system,  which  precludes  education,  almost  eschews  matri 
mony,  separates  husbands  and  wives,  parents  and  children,  and 
sends  the  women  to  the  labours  of  the  field. 


CHAPTER  XL 

HOW  SLAVERY  GROWS  IN  PORTUGAL  AND  TURKEY. 

IN  point  of  natural  advantages,  PORTUGAL  is  equal  with  any 
country  in  Western  Europe.  Her  soil  is  capable  of  yielding 
largely  of  every  description  of  grain,  and  her  climate  enables  her 
to  cultivate  the  vine  and  the  olive.  Mineral  riches  abound,  and 
her  rivers  give  to  a  large  portion  of  the  country  every  facility  for 
cheap  intercourse;  and  yet  her  people  are  among  the  most  enslaved, 
while  her  government  is  the  weakest  and  most  contemptible  of 
Europe. 

It  is  now  a  century  and  a  half  since  England  granted  her  what 
were  deemed  highly  important  advantages  in  regard  to  wine, 


118 

on  condition  that  she  should  discard  the  artisans  who  had  been 
brought  to  the  side  of  her  farmers,  and  permit  the  people  of  Eng 
land  to  supply  her  people  with  certain  descriptions  of  manufactures. 
What  were  the  duties  then  agreed  on  are  not  given  in  any  of  the 
books  now  at  hand,  but  by  the  provisions  of  a  treaty  made  in 
1810,  cloths  of  all  descriptions  were  to  be  admitted*  at  a  merely 
revenue  duty,  varying  from  ten  to  fifteen  per  cent.  A  natural  con 
sequence  of  this  system  has  been  that  the  manufactures  which  up  to 
the  date  of  the  Methuen  treaty  had  risen  in  that  country,  perished 
under  foreign  competition,  and  the  people  found  themselves  by 
degrees  limited  exclusively  to  agricultural  employments.  Mechanics 
found  there  no  place  for  the  exercise  of  their  talents,  towns  could 
not  grow,  schools  could  not  arise,  and  the  result  is  seen  in  the  fol 
lowing  paragraph : — 

"It  is  surprising  h.ow  ignorant,  or  at  least  superficially  acquainted, 
the  Portuguese  are  with  every  kind  of  handicraft ;  a  carpenter  is  awk 
ward  and  clumsy,  spoiling  every  work  he  attempts,  and  the  way  in 
which  the  doors  and  woodwork  even  of  good  houses  are  finished  would 
have  suited  the  rudest  ages.  Their  carriages  of  all  kinds,  from  the 
fidalgo's  family  coach  to  the  peasant's  market  cart,  their  agricultural 
implements,  locks  and  keys,  &c.  are  ludicrously  bad.  They  seem  to 
disdain  improvement,  and  are  so  infinitely  below  par,  so  strikingly 
inferior  to  the  rest  of  Europe,  as  to  form  a  sort  of  disgraceful  wonder 
in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century." — Baillie. 

The  population,  which,  half  a  century  since  was  3,683,000,  is 
now  reduced  to  little  more  than  3,000,000 ;  and  we  need  no  better 
evidence  of  the  enslaving  and  exhausting  tendency  of  a  policy  that 
limits  a  whole  people,  men,  women,  and  children,  to  the  labours  of 
the  field.  At  the  close  almost  of  a  century  and  a  half  of  this  sys 
tem,  the  following  is  given  in  a  work  of  high  reputation,  as  a  cor 
rect  picture  of  the  state 'of  the  country  and  the  strength  of  the 
government : — 

"The  finances  of  Portugal  are  in  the  most  deplorable  condition,  the 
treasury  is  dry,  and  all  branches  of  the  public  service  suffer.  A  care 
lessness  and  a  mutual  apathy  reign  not  only  throughout  the  govern 
ment,  but  also  throughout  the  nation.  While  improvement  is  sought 
everywhere  else  throughout  Europe,  Portugal  remains  stationary. 
The  postal  service  of  the  country  offers  a  curious  example  of  this, 
nineteen  to  twenty-one  days  being  still  required  for  a  letter  to  go  and 
come  between  Lisbon  and  Braganza,  a  distance  of  423J  kilometres, 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  119 

(or  little  over  300  miles.)  All  the  resources  of  the  state  are  exhausted, 
and  it  is  probable  that  the  receipts  will  not  give  one-third  of  the  amount 
for  which  they  figure  in  the  budget." — Annuaire  de  I' Economic  Poli- 
tique,  1849,  322. 

Some  years  since  an  effort  was  made  to  bring  the  artisan  to  the 
side  of  the  farmer  and  vine-grower,  but  a  century  and  a  half  of  ex 
clusive  devotion  to  agriculture  had  placed  the  people  so  far  in  the 
rear  of  those  of  other  nations,  that  the  attempt  was  hopeless,  the 
country  having  long  since  become  a  mere  colony  of  Great  Britain. 

If  we  turn  to  Madeira,  we  find  there  further  evidence  of  the  ex 
hausting  consequences  of  the  separation  of  the  farmer  and  the  arti 
san.  From  1836  to  1842,  the  only  period  for  which  returns  are 
before  me,  there  was  a  steady  decline  in  the  amount  of  agricultural 
production,  until  the  diminution  had  reached  about  thirty  per  cent., 
as  follows:  — 

Wine.  Wheat.  Barley. 

1836 27,270  pipes.     8472  qrs.  3510 

1842 16,131     «        6863    «  2777 

At  this  moment  the  public  papers  furnish  an  "  Appeal  to  Ame 
rica,"  commencing  as  follows: — 

"  A  calamity  has  fallen  on  Madeira  unparalleled  in  its  history.  The 
vintage,  the  revenue  of  which  furnished  the  chief  means  for  providing 
subsistence  for  its  inhabitants,  has  been  a  total  failure,  and  the  potato 
crop,  formerly  another  important  article  of  their  food,  is  still  exten 
sively  diseased.  All  classes,  therefore,  are  suffering,  and  as  there  are 
few  sources  in  the  island  to  which  they  can  look  for  food,  clothing, 
and  other  necessaries  of  life,  their  distress  must  increase  during  the 
winter,  and  the  future  is  contemplated  with  painful  anxiety  and  appre 
hension.  Under  such  appalling  prospects,  the  zealous  and  excellent 
civil  Governor,  Snr.  Jose  Silvestre  Ribeiro,  addressed  a  circular  letter 
to  the  merchants  of  Madeira  on  the  24th  of  August  last,  for  the  purpose 
of  bringing  the  unfortunate  and  critical  position  of  the  population 
under  his  government  to  the  notice  of  the  benevolent  and  charitable 
classes  in  foreign  countries,  and  in  the  hope  of  exciting  their  sympathy 
with,  and  assistance  to,  so  many  of  their  fellow-creatures  threatened 
with  famine." 

Such  are  the  necessary  consequences  of  a  system  which  looks 
to  compelling  the  whole  population  of  a  country  to  employ  them 
selves  in  a  single  pursuit — all  cultivating  the  land  and  all  producing 
the  same  commodity;  and  which  thus  effectually  prevents  the 
growth  of  that  natural  association  so  much  admired  by  Adam 


120  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

Smith.  It  is  one  that  can  end  only  in  the  exhaustion  of  the  land  and 
its  owner.  When  population  increases  and  men  come  together,  even 
the  poor  land  is  made  rich,  and  thus  it  is,  says  M.  de  Jonnes,  that 
"  the  power  of  manure  causes  the  poor  lands  of  the  department  of 
the  Seine  to  yield  thrice  as  much  as  those  of  the  Loire/'*  When 
population  diminishes,  and  men  are  thus  forced  to  live  at  greater  dis 
tances  from  each  other,  even  the  rich  lands  become  impoverished ; 
and  of  this  no  better  evidence  need  be  sought  than  that  furnished 
by  Portugal.  In  the  one  case,  each  day  brings  men  nearer  to 
perfect  freedom  of  thought,  speech,  action,  and  trade.  In  the 
other  they  become  from  day  to  day  more  barbarized  and  enslaved, 
and  the  women  are  more  and  more  driven  to  the  field,  there  to 
become  the  slaves  of  fathers,  husbands,  brothers,  and  even  of  sons. 

Of  all  the  countries  of  Europe  there  is  none  possessed  of  natural 
advantages  to  enable  it  to  compare  with  those  constituting  the 
TURKISH  EMPIRE  in  Europe  and  Asia.  Wool  and  silk,  corn,  oil, 
and  tobacco,  might,  with  proper  cultivation,  be  produced  in  almost 
unlimited  quantity,  while  Thessaly  and  Macedonia,  long  celebrated 
for  the  production  of  cotton,  abound  in  lands  uncultivated,  from 
which  it  might  be  obtained  in  sufficient  extent  to  clothe  a  large  portion 
of  Europe.  Iron  ore  abounds,  and  in  quality  equal  to  any  in  the 
world,  while  in  another  part  of  the  empire  "  the  hills  seem  a  mass 
of  carbonate  of  copper."f  Nature  has  done  every  thing  for  the 
people  of  that  country,  and  yet  of  all  those  of  Europe,  the  Turkish 
ray  ah  approaches  in  condition  nearest  to  a  slave;  and  orall  the  go 
vernments  of  Europe,  that  of  Portugal  even  not  excepted,  that  of 
Turkey  is  the  most  a  slave  to  the  dictation,  not  only  of  nations,  but 
even  of  bankers  and  traders.  Why  it  is  so,  we  may  now  inquire 

By  the  terms  of  the  treaty  with  England  in  1675,  the  Turkish 
government  bound  itself  to  charge  no  more  than  three  per  cent, 
duty  on  imports,^  and  as  this  could  contribute  little  to  the  revenue, 

*  Statistique  de  1'Agriculture  de  la  France,  129. 
f  Urquhart's  Resources  of  Turkey,  179. 

J  Equivalent  to  light  port-charges,  the  anchorage  being  only  sixteen  cents  per 
ship. 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  121 

that  required  to  be  sought  elsewhere.  A  poll-tax,  house-tax,  land- 
tax,  and  many  other  direct  taxes,  furnished  a  part  of  it,  and  the 
balance  was  obtained  by  an  indirect  tax  in  the  form  of  export  duties; 
and  as  the  corn,  tobacco,  and  cotton  of  its  people  were  obliged  to 
compete  in  the  general  markets  of  the  world  with  the  produce  of 
other  lands,  it  is  clear  that  these  duties  constituted  a  further  con 
tribution  from  the  cultivators  of  the  empire  in  aid  of  the  various 
direct  taxes  that  have  been  mentioned.  So  far  as  foreigners  were 
interested,  the  system  was  one  of  perfect  free  trade  and  direct 
taxation. 

For  many  years,  Turkey  manufactured  much  of  her  cotton,  and 
she  exported  cotton-yarn.  Such  was  the  case  so  recently  as  1798, 
as  will  be  seen  by  the  following  very  interesting  account  of  one  of 
the  seats  of  the  manufacture  : — 

" '  Ambelakia,  by  its  activity,  appears  rather  a  borough  of  Holland 
than  a  village  of  Turkey.  This  village  spreads,  by  its  industry,  move 
ment,  Ymd  life,  over  the  surrounding  country,  and  gives  birth  to  an 
immense  commerce  which  unites  Germany  to  Greece  by  a  thousand 
threads.  Its  population  has  trebled  in  fifteen  years,  and  amounts  at 
present  (1798)  to  four  thousand,  who  live  in  their  manufactories  like 
swarms  of  bees  in  their  hives.  In  this  village  are  unknown  both  the 
vices  and  cares  engendered  by  idleness  ;  the  hearts  of  the  Ambelakiots 
are  pure  and  their  faces  serene;  the  slavery  which  blasts  the  plains 
watered  by  the  Peneus,  and  stretching  at  their  feet,  has  never  ascended 
the  sides  of  Pelion  (Ossa ;)  and  they  govern  themselves,  like  their 
ancestors,  by  their  protoyeros,  (primates,  elders,)  and  their  own  magis 
trates.  Twice  the  Mussulmen  of  Larissa  attempted  to  scale  their 
rocks,  and  twice  were  they  repulsed  by  hands  which  dropped  the 
shuttle  to  seize  the  musket. 

'"Every  arm,  even  those  of  the  children,  is  employed  in  the  facto 
ries  ;  while  the  men  dye  the  cotton,  the  women  prepare  and  spin  it. 
There  are  twenty-four  factories,  in  which  yearly  two  thousand  five 
hundred  bales  of  cotton  yarn,  of  one  hundred  cotton  okes  each,  were 
dyed  (6138  cwts.)  This  yarn  found  its  way  into  Germany,  and  was 
disposed  of  at  Buda,  Vienna,  Leipsic,  Dresden,  Anspach,  and  Bareuth. 
The  Ambelakiot  merchants  had  houses  of  their  own  in  all  these  places. 
These  houses  belonged  to  distinct  associations  at  Ambelakia.  The 
competition  thus  established  reduced  very  considerably  the  common 
profits  ;  they  proposed  therefore  to  unite  themselves  under  one  central 
commercial  administration.  Twenty  years  ago  this  plan  was  sug 
gested,  and  in  a  year  afterward  it  was  carried  into  execution.  The 
lowest  shares  in  this  joint-stock  company  were  five  thousand  piastres, 
(between  £600  and  £700,)  and  the  highest  were  restricted  to  twenty 
thousand,  that  the  capitalists  might  not  swallow  up  all  the  profits. 


122  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

The  workmen  subscribed  their  little  profits,  and  uniting  in  societies, 
purchased  single  shares  ;  and  besides  their  capital,  their  labour  was 
reckoned  in  the  general  amount ;  they  received  their  share  of  the 
profits  accordingly,  and  abundance  was  soon  spread  through  the  whole 
community.  The  dividends  were  at  first  restricted  to  ten  per  cent, 
and  the  surplus  profit  was  applied  to  the  augmenting  of  the  capital ; 
which  in  two  years  was  raised  from  600,000  to  1,000,000  piastres, 
(£120,000.)' 

"  It  supplied  industrious  Germany,  not  by  the  perfection  of  its  jen 
nies,  but  by  the  industry  of  its  spindle  and  distaff.  It  taught  Mont- 
pellier  the  art  of  dyeing,  not  from  experimental  chairs,  but  because 
dyeing  was  with  it  a  domestic  and  culinary  operation,  subject  to  daily 
observation  in  every  kitchen  ;  and  by  the  simplicity  and  honesty,  not 
the  science  of  its  system,  it  reads  a  lesson  to  commercial  associations, 
and  holds  up  an  example  unparalleled  in  the  commercial  history  of 
Europe,  of  a  joint-stock  and  labour  company,  ably  and  economically 
and  successfully  administered,  in  which  the  interests  of  industry  and 
capital  were  long  equally  represented.  Yet  the  system  of  administra 
tion  with  which  all  this  is  connected,  is  common  to  the  thousand 
hamlets  of  Thessaly  that  have  not  emerged  from  their  insignificance  ; 
but  Ambelakia  for  twenty  years  was  left  alone."* 

At  that  time,  however,  England  had  invented  new  machinery 
for  spinning  cotton,  and,  by  prohibiting  its  export,  had  provided 
that  all  the  cotton  of  the  world  should  be  brought  to  Manchester 
before  it  could  be  cheaply  converted  into  cloth. 

The  cotton  manufacturers  at  Ambelakia  had  their  difficulties  to 
encounter,  but  all  those  might  have  been  overcome  had  they  not, 
says  Mr.  Urquhart,  "  been  outstripped  by  Manchester/'  They  were 
outstripped,  and  twenty  years  afterward,  not  only  had  that  place 
been  deserted,  but  others  in  its  neighbourhood  were  reduced  to 
complete  desolation.  Native  manufactories  for  the  production  of 
cotton  goods  had,  indeed,  almost  ceased  to  work.  Of  600  looms 
at  Scutari  in  1812,  but  40  remained  in  1821;  and  of  the  2000 
weaving  establishments  at  Tournovo  in  1812,  but  200  remained  in 
1830. f  For  a  time,  cotton  went  abroad  to  be  returned  in  the  form 
of  twist,  thus  making  a  voyage  of  thousands  of  miles  in  search  of 
a  spindle ;  but  even  this  trade  has  in  a  great  degree  passed  away. 
As  a  consequence  of  these  things  there  had  been  a  ruinous  fall  of 
wages,  affecting  all  classes  of  labourers.  "  The  profits,"  says  Mr. 
Urquhart — 

*  Beaujour's  Tableau  du  Commerce  de  la  Greece,  quoted  by  Urquhart,  47. 
j-  Urquhart,  150. 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  123 

"Have  been  reduced  to  one-half,  and  sometimes  to  one-third,  by  the 
introduction  of  English  cottons,  which,  though  they  have  reduced  the 
home  price,  and  arrested  the  export  of  cotton-yarn  from  Turkey,  have 
not  yet  supplanted  the  home  manufacture  in  any  visible  degree ;  for, 
until  tranquillity  has  allowed  agriculture  to  revive,  the  people  must  go 
on  working  merely  for  bread,  and  reducing  their  price,  in  a  struggle 
of  hopeless  competition.  The  industry,  however,  of  the  women  and 
children  is  most  remarkable ;  in  every  interval  of  labour,  tending  the 
cattle,  carrying  water,  the  spindle  and  distaff,  as  in  the  days  of  Xerxes, 
is  never  out  of  their  hands.  The  children  are  as  assiduously  at  work, 
from  the  moment  their  little  fingers  can  turn  the  spindle.  About 
Ambelakia,  the  former  focus  of  the  cotton-yarn  trade,  the  peasantry 
has  suffered  dreadfully  from  this,  though  formerly  the  women  could 
earn  as  much  in-doors,  as  their  husbands  in  the  field ;  at  present,  their 
daily  profit  (1831)  does  not  exceed  twenty  paras,  if  realized,  for  often 
they  cannot  dispose  of  the  yarn  when  spun. 

Piastres.  Paras. 

Five  okes  of  uncleaned  cotton,  at  seventeen  paras 2  5 

Labour  of  a  woman  for  two  days,  (seven  farthings  per  day)  0  35 

Carding,  by  vibrations  of  a  catrgut 0  10 

Spinning,  a  woman's  unremitting  labour  for  a  week 5  30 

Loss  of  cotton,  exceeding  an  oke  of  uiicleaued  cotton 0  20 

Value  of  one  oke  of  uncleaned  cotton  ..    Prs.  9          00 


"  Here  a  woman's  labour  makes  but  2d.  per  day,  while  field-labour, 
according  to  the  season  of  the  year,  ranges  from  4d.  to  6d. ;  and  at  this 
rate,  the  pound  of  coarse  cotton-yarn  cost  in  spinning  5d." — P.  147. 

The  labour  of  a  woman  is  estimated  at  less  than  four  cents  per 
day,  and  "  the  unremitting  labour  of  a  week"  will  command  but 
twenty-five  cents.  The  wages  of  men  employed  in  gathering  leaves 
and  attending  silkworms  are  stated  at  one  piastre  (five  cents)  per 
day.  At  Salonica,  the  shipping  port  of  Thessaly,  they  were  ten 
cents.  (Urquhart,  268.) 

As  a  necessary  consequence  of  this,  population  diminishes,  and 
everywhere  are  seen  the  ruins  of  once  prosperous  villages.  Agri 
culture  declines  from  day  to  day.  The  once  productive  cotton- 
fields  of  Thessaly  lie  untilled,  and  even  around  Constantinople 
itself— 

"  There  are  no  cultivated  lands  to  speak  of  within  twenty  miles,  in 
some  directions  within  fifty  miles.  The  commonest  necessaries  of  life 
come  from  distant  parts  :  the  corn  for  daily  bread  from  Odessa  ;  the 
cattle  and  sheep  from  beyond  Adrianople,  or  from  Asia  Minor ;  the 
rice,  of  which  such  a  vast  consumption  is  made,  from  the  neighbour 
hood  of  Phillippopolis ;  the  poultry  chiefly  from  Bulgaria ;  the  fruit 


124  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

and  vegetables  from  Nicomedia  and  Mondania.  Thus  a  constant  drain 
of  money  is  occasioned,  without  any  visible  return  except  to  the  trea 
sury  or  from  the  property  of  the  Ulema." — Blade's  Travels  in  Turkey, 
vol.  ii.  143. 

The  silk  that  is  made  is  badly  prepared,  because  the  distance  of 
the  artisan  prevents  the  poor  people  from  obtaining  good  ma 
chinery  j  and  as  a  consequence  of  this,  the  former  direct  trade 
with  Persia  has  been  superseded  by  an  indirect  one  through  Eng 
land,  to  which  the  raw  silk  has  now  to  be  sent.  In  every  depart 
ment  of  industry  we  see  the  same  result.  Birmingham  has  super 
seded  Damascus,  whose  blades  are  now  no  longer  made. 

Not  only  is  the  foreigner  free  to  introduce  his  wares,  but  he  may, 
on  payment  of  a  trifling  duty  of  two  per  cent.,  carry  them  through 
out  the  empire  until  finally  disposed  of.  He  travels  by  caravans, 
and  is  lodged  without  expense.  He  brings  his  goods  to  be  exchanged 
for  money,  or  what  else  he  needs,  and  the  exchange  effected,  he 
disappears  as  suddenly  as  he  came. 

"It  is  impossible/'  says  Mr.  Urquhart,  "to  witness  the  arrival  of 
the  many-tongued  caravan  at  its  resting-place  for  the  night,  and  see, 
unladen  and  piled  up  together,  the  bales  from  such  distant  places — to 
glance  over  their  very  wrappers,  and  the  strange  marks  and  characters 
which  they  bear — without  being  amazed  at  so  eloquent  a  contradiction 
of  our  preconceived  notions  of  indiscriminate  despotism  and  universal 
insecurity  of  the  East.  But  while  we  observe  the  avidity  with  which 
our  goods  are  sought,  the  preference  now  transferred  from  Indian  to 
Birmingham  muslins,  from  Golconda  to  Glasgow  chintzes,  from  Da 
mascus  to  Sheffield  steel,  from  Cashmere  shawls  to  English  broad 
cloth  ;  and  while,  at  the  same  time,  the  energies  of  their  commercial 
spirit  are  brought  thus  substantially  before  us  ;  it  is  indeed  impossible 
not  to  regret  that  a  gulf  of  separation  should  have  so  long  divided  the 
East  and  the  West,  and  equally  impossible  not  to  indulge  in  the  hope 
and  anticipation  of  a  vastly  extended  traffic  with  the  East,  and  of  all 
the  blessings  which  follow  fast  and  welling  in  the  wake  of  commerce." 
—P.  133. 

Among  the  "blessings"  of  the  system  is  the  fact  that  local 
places  of  exchange  no  longer  exist.  The  storekeeper  who  pays 
rent  and  taxes  has  found  himself  unable  to  compete  with  the  pod- 
ler  who  pays  neither;  and  the  consequence  is  that  the  poor  culti 
vator  finds  it  impossible  to  exchange  his  products,  small  as  they 
are,  for  the  commodities  he  needs,  except  on  the  occasional  arrival 
of  a  caravan,  and  that  has  generally  proved  far  more  likely  to  ab- 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  125 

sorb  the  little  money  in  circulation,  than  any  of  the  more  bulky 
and  less  valuable  products  of  the  earth. 

As  usual  in  purely  agricultural  countries,  the  whole  body  of 
cultivators  is  hopelessly  in  debt,  and  the  money-lender  fleeces  all. 
If  he  aids  the  peasant  before  harvest,  he  must  have  an  enormous 
interest,  and  be  paid  in  produce  at  a  large  discount  from  the 
market  price.  The  village  communities  are  almost  universally  iu 
debt,  but  to  them,  as  the  security  is  good,  the  banker  charges  only 
twenty  per  cent,  per  annum.  Turkey  is  the  very  paradise  of  mid 
dlemen — a  consequence  of  the  absence  of  any  mode  of  employment 
except  in  cultivation  or  in  trade ;  and  the  moral  effect  of  this  may 
be  seen  in  the  following  passage  : — 

"  If  you  see,"  says  Urquhart,  "  a  Turk  meditating  in  a  corner,  it  is 
on  some  speculation — the  purchase  of  a  revenue  farm,  or  the  propriety 
of  a  loan  at  sixty  per  cent. ;  if  you  see  pen  or  paper  in  his  hand,  it  is 
making  or  checking  an  account ;  if  there  is  a  disturbance  in  the  street, 
it  is  a  disputed  barter ;  whether  in  the  streets  or  in-doors,  whether  in 
a  coffee-house,  a  serai,  or  a  bazaar,  whatever  the  rank,  nation,  language 
of  the  persons  around  you,  traffic,  barter,  gain  are  the  prevailing  im 
pulses  ;  grusch,  para,  florin,  lira,  asper,  amid  the  Babel  of  tongues,  are 
the  universally  intelligible  sounds." — P.  138. 

We  have  thus  a  whole  people  divided  into  two  classes — the 
plunderers  and  the  plundered;  and  the  cause  of  this  may  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  the  owners  and  occupants  of  land  have  never  been 
permitted  to  strengthen  themselves  by  the  formation  of  that  natu 
ral  alliance  between  the  plough  and  the  loom,  the  hammer  and 
the  harrow,  so  much  admired  by  Adam  Smith.  The  government 
is  as  weak  as  the  people,  for  it  is  so  entirely  dependent  on  the 
bankers,  that  they  may  be  regarded  as  the  real  owners  of  the  land 
and  the  people,  taxing  them  at  discretion;  and  to  them  certainly 
enure  all  the  profits  of  cultivation.  As  a  consequence  of  this,  the 
land  is  almost  valueless.  A  recent  traveller  states  that  good  land 
may  be  purchased  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Smyrna  at  six  cents 
an  acre,  and  at  a  little  distance  vast  quantities  may  be  had  for 
nothing.  Throughout  the  world,  the  freedom  of  man  has  grown 
in  the  ratio  of  the  increase  in  the  value  of  land,  and  that  has 
always  grown  in  the  ratio  of  the  tendency  to  have  the  artisan  take 
his  place  by  the  side  of  the  cultivator  of  the  earth.  Whatever 


126  THE   SLAVE  TKADE, 

tends  to  prevent  this  natural  association  tends,  therefore,  to  the 
debasement  and  enslavement  of  man. 

The  weakness  of  Turkey,  as  regards  foreign  nations,  is  great, 
and  it  increases  every  day.*  Not  only  ambassadors,  but  consuls, 
beard  it  in  its  own  cities ;  and  it  is  now  even  denied  that  she  has 
any  right  to  adopt  a  system  of  trade  different  from  that  under 
which  she  has  become  thus  weakened.  Perfect  freedom  of  com 
merce  is  declared  to  be  "  one  of  those  immunities  which  we  can 
resign  on  no  account  or  pretext  whatever ;  it  is  a  golden  privilege, 
which  we  can  never  abandon. "f% 

Internal  trade  scarcely  exists;  and,  as  a  natural  consequence, 
the  foreign  one  is  insignificant,  the  whole  value  of  the  exports  be 
ing  but  about  thirty-three  millions  of  dollars,  or  less  than  two  dol 
lars  per  head.  The  total  exports  from  Great  Britain  in  the  last 
year  amounted  to  but  £2,221,000,  ($11,500,000,)  much  of  which 
was  simply  en  route  for  Persia ;  and  this  constitutes  the  great  trade 
that  has  been  built  up  at  so  much  cost  to  the  people  of  Turkey, 
and  that  is  to  be  maintained  as  "  a  golden  privilege"  not  to  be 
abandoned  !  Not  discouraged  by  the  result  of  past  efforts,  the 
same  author  looks  forward  anxiously  for  the  time  when  there  shall 
be  in  Turkey  no  employment  in  manufactures  of  any  kind,  and 
when  the  people  shall  be  exclusively  employed  in  agriculture ;  and 
that  time  cannot,  he  thinks,  be  far  distant,  as  "  a  few  pence  more 
or  less  in  the  price  of  a  commodity  will  make  the  difference  of 
purchasing  or  manufacturing  at  home."! 

Throughout  his  book  he  shows  that  the  rudeness  of  the  ma 
chinery  of  cultivation  is  in  the  direct  ratio  of  the  distance  of  the 
cultivator  from  market ;  and  yet  he  would  desire  that  all  the  pro 
duce  of  the  country  should  go  to  a  distant  market  to  be  exchanged, 
although  the  whole  import  of  iron  at  the  present  moment  for  the 
supply  of  a  population  of  almost  twenty  millions  of  people,  possess- 

*  The  recent  proceedings  in  regard  to  the  Turkish  loan  are  strikingly  illus 
trative  of  the  exhausting  effects  of  a  system  that  looks  wholly  to  the  export  of 
the  raw  produce  of  the  earth,  and  thus  tends  to  the  ruin  of  the  soil  and  of  its 
owner. 

f  Urquhart,  257.  J  Ibid.  202. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  127 

ing  iron  ore,  fuel,  and  unemployed  labour  in  unlimited  quantity, 
is  but  £2500  per  annum,  or  about  a  penny's  worth  for  every  thirty 
persons !  Need  we  wonder  at  the  character  of  the  machinery,  the 
poverty  and  slavery  of  the  people,  the  trivial  amount  of  commerce, 
or  at  the  weakness  of  a  government  whose  whole  system  looks  to 
the  exhaustion  of  the  land,  and  to  the  exclusion  of  that  great  mid 
dle  class  of  working-men,  to  whom  the  agriculturist  has  everywhere 
been  indebted  for  his  freedom  ? 

The  facts  thus  far  given  have  been  taken,  as  the  reader  will 
have  observed,  from  Mr.  Urquhart's  work ;  and  as  that  gentleman 
is  a  warm  admirer  of  the  system  denounced  by  Adam  Smith,  he 
cannot  be  suspected  of  any  exaggeration  when  presenting  any  of 
its  unfavourable  results.  Later  travellers  exhibit  the  nation  as 
passing  steadily  onward  toward  ruin,  and  the  people  toward  a  state 
of  slavery  the  most  complete — the  necessary  consequence  of  a  po 
licy  that  excludes  the  mechanic  and  prevents  the  formation  of  a 
town  population.  Among  the  latest  of  those  travellers  is  Mr.  Mac 
Farlane,*  at  the  date  of  whose  visit  the  silk  manufacture  had  en 
tirely  disappeared,  and  even  the  filatures  for  preparing  the  raw  silk 
were  closed,  weavers  having  become  ploughmen,  and  women  and 
children  having  been  totally  deprived  of  employment.  The  culti 
vators  of  silk  had  become  entirely  dependent  on  foreign  markets 
in  which  there  existed  no  demand  for  the  products  of  their  land 
and  labour.  England  was  then  passing  through  one  of  her  periodi 
cal  crises,  and  it  had  been  deemed  necessary  to  put  down  the  prices 
of  all  agricultural  products,  with  a  view  to  stop  importation.  On 
one  occasion,  during  Mr.  Mac  Farlane's  travels,  there  came  a  report 
that  silk  had  risen  in  England,  and  it  produced  a  momentary  stir 
and  animation,  that,  as  he  says,  "  flattered  his  national  vanity  to 
think  that  an  electric  touch  parting  from  London,  the  mighty  heart 
of  commerce,  should  thus  be  felt  in  a  few  days  at  a  place  like  Bil- 
jek."  Such  is  commercial  centralization  !  It  renders  the  agricul 
turists  of  the  world  mere  slaves,  dependent  for  food  and  clothing 
upon  the  will  of  a  few  people,  proprietors  of  a  small  amount  of 

*  Turkey,  and  its  Destiny,  by  C.  Mac  Farlane,  Esq.,  1850, 


•128 

machinery,  at  "the  mighty  heart  of  commerce."  At  one  moment 
speculation  is  rife,  and  silk  goes  up  in  price,  and  then  every  effort 
is  made  to  induce  large  shipments  of  the  raw  produce  of  the  world. 
At  the  next,  money  is  said  to  be  scarce,  and  the  shippers  art)  ruined, 
as  was,  to  so  great  an  extent,  experienced  by  those  who  exported 
corn  from  this  country  in  1847. 

At  the  date  of  the  traveller's  first  visit  to  Broussa,  the  villages 
were  numerous,  and  the  silk  manufacture  was  prosperous.  At  the 
second,  the  silk  works  were  stopped  and  their  owners  bankrupt,  the 
villages  were  gradually  disappearing,  and  in  the  town  itself  scarcely 
a  chimney  was  left,  while  the  country  around  presented  to  view  no 
thing  but  poverty  and  wretchedness.  Everywhere,  throughout  the 
empire,  the  roads  are  bad,  and  becoming  worse,  and  the  condition 
of  the  cultivator  deteriorates ;  for  if  he  has  a  surplus  to  sell,  most 
of  its  value  at  market  is  absorbed  by  the  cost  of  transportation,  and 
if  his  crop  is  short,  prices  rise  so  high  that  he  cannot  purchase. 
Famines  are  therefore  frequent,  and  child-murder  prevails  through 
out  all  classes  of  society.  Population  therefore  diminishes,  and 
the  best  lands  are  abandoned,  "nine-tenths"  of  them  remaining 
untilled  ;*  the  natural  consequence  of  which  is,  that  malaria  pre 
vails  in  many  of  those  parts  of  the  country  that  once  were  most 
productive,  and  pestilence  comes  in  aid  of  famine  for  the 
extermination  of  this  unfortunate  people.  Native  mechanics  are 
nowhere  to  be  found,  there  being  no  demand  for  them,  and  the 
plough,  the  wine-press,  and  the  oil-mill  are  equally  rude  and  bar 
barous.  The  product  of  labour  is,  consequently,  most  diminutive, 
and  its  wages  twopence  a  day,  with  a  little  food.  The  interest  of 
money  varies  from  25  to  50  per  cent,  per  annum,  and  this  rate  is 
frequently  paid  for  the  loan  of  bad  seed  that  yields  but  little  to 
either  land  or  labour. 

With  the  decline  of  population  and  the  disappearance  of  all  the 
local  places  of  exchange,  the  pressure  of  the  conscription  becomes 
from  year  to  year  more  severe,  and  droves  of  men  may  be  seen 
1 '  chained  like  wild  beasts — free  Osmanlees  driven  along  the  road 

*  Mac  Farlane,  vol.  i.  46. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  129 

like  slaves  to  a  market" — free  men,  separated  from  wives  and 
children,  who  are  left  to  perish  of  starvation  amid  the  richest 
lands,  that  remain  untilled  because  of  the  separation  of  the  artisan 
from  the  producer  of  food,  silk,  and  cotton.  Internal  commerce  is 
trifling  in  amount,  and  the  power  to  pay  for  foreign  merchandise 
has  almost  passed  away.  Land  is  nearly  valueless ;  and  in  this  we 
find  the  most  convincing  proof  of  the  daily  increasing  tendency 
toward  slavery,  man  having  always  become  enslaved  as  land  has 
lost  its  value.  In  the  great  valley  of  Buyuk-dere,  once  known  as 
the  fair  land,  a  property  of  twenty  miles  in  circumference  had 
shortly  before  his  visit  been  purchased  for  less  than  £1000,  or 
64800.*  In  another  part  of  the  country,  one  of  twelve  miles  in 
circumference  had  been  purchased  for  a  considerably  smaller  sum.f 
The  slave  trade,  black  and  white,  had  never  been  more  active  ;J 
and  this  was  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  decline  in  the  value 
of  labour  and  land. 

In  this  country,  negro  men  are  well  fed,  clothed,  and  lodged, 
and  are  gradually  advancing  toward  freedom.  Population  there 
fore  increases,  although  more  slowly  than  would  be  the  case  were 
they  enabled  more  to  combine  their  efforts  for  the  improvement 
of  their  condition.  In  the  West  Indies,  Portugal,  and  Turkey,  be 
ing  neither  well  fed,  clothed,  nor  lodged,  their  condition  declines; 
and  as  they  can  neither  be  bought  nor  sold,  they  are  allowed 
to  die  off,  and  population  diminishes  as  the  tendency  toward 
the  subjugation  of  the  labourer  becomes  more  and  more  complete. 
Which  of  these  conditions  tends  most  to  favour  advance  in  civil 
ization  the  reader  may  decide. 

*  Mac  Faxlane,  vol.  ii.  242.  f  Ibid.  2%.  J  Ibid.  vol.  i.  37. 


130 


CHAPTER  XIL 

HOW    SLAVERY   GROWS   IN   INDIA. 

IN  no  part  of  the  world  has  there  existed  the  same  tendency  to 
voluntary  association,  the  distinguishing  mark  of  freedom,  as  in 
India.  In  none  have  the  smaller  communities  been  to  the  same 
extent  permitted  the  exercise  of  self-government.  Each  Hindoo 
village  had  its  distinct  organization,  and  under  its  simple  and 
"  almost  patriarchal  arrangements/'  says,  Mr.  Greig,* — 

"The  natives  of  Hindoostan  seem  to  have  lived  from  the  earliest, 
down,  comparatively  speaking,  to  late  times — if  not  free  from  the 
troubles  and  annoyances  to  which  men  in  all  conditions  of  society  are 
more  or  less  subject,  still  in  the  full  enjoyment,  each  individual,  of  his 
property,  and  of  a  very  considerable  share  of  personal  liberty.  *  *  * 
Leave  him  in  possession  of  the  farm  which  his  forefathers  owned, 
and  preserve  entire  the  institutions  to  which  he  had  from  infancy  been 
accustomed,  and  the  simple  Hindoo  would  give  himself  no  concern 
whatever  as  to  the  intrigues  and  cabals  which  took  place  at  the  capital. 
Dynasties  might  displace  one  another ;  revolutions  might  recur ;  and 
the  persons  of  his  sovereigns  might  change  every  day;  but  so  long  as 
his  own  little  society  remained  undisturbed,  all  other  contingencies 
were  to  him  subjects  scarcely  of  speculation.  To  this,  indeed,  more 
than  to  any  other  cause,  is  to  be  ascribed  the  facility  with  which  one 
conqueror  after  another  has  overrun  different  parts  of  India;  which 
submitted,  not  so  much  because  its  inhabitants  were  wanting  in  courage, 
as  because  to  the  great  majority  among  them  it  signified  nothing  by 
whom  the  reins  of  the  supreme  government  were  held.  A  third  conse 
quence  of  the  village  system  has  been  one  which  men  will  naturally 
regard  as  advantageous  or  the  reverse,  according  to  the  opinions  which 
they  hold,  touching  certain  abstract  points  into  which  it  is  not  neces 
sary  to  enter  here.  Perhaps  there  are  not  to  be  found  on  the  face  of 
the  earth,  a  race  of  human  beings  whose  attachment  to  their  native 
place  will  bear  a  comparison  with  that  of  the  Hindoos.  There  are  no 
privations  which  the  Hindoo  will  hesitate  to  bear,  rather  than  volun 
tarily  abandon  the  spot  where  he  was  born  ;  and  if  continued  oppres 
sion  drive  him  forth,  he  will  return  to  it  again  after  long  years  of  exile 
with  fresh  fondness." 

The  Mohammedan  conquest  left  these  simple  and  beautiful  in- 
*  History  of  British  India,  vol.  i.  46. 


DOMESTIC  AND   FOREIGN.  131 

stitutions  untouched.     "Each  Hindoo  village/'  says  Col.  Briggs, 
in  his  work  on  the  land  tax — 

"  Had  its  distinct  municipality,  and  over  a  certain  number  of  villa 
ges,  or  district,  was  an  hereditary  chief  and  accountant,  both  pos 
sessing  great  local  influence  and  authority,  and  certain  territorial  do 
mains  or  estates.  The  Mohammedans  early  saw  the  policy  of  not  dis 
turbing  an  institution  so  complete,  and  they  availed  themselves  of  the 
local  influence  of  these  officers  to  reconcile  their  subjects  to  their  rule. 
*  *  *  From  the  existence  of  these  local  Hindoo  chiefs  at  the  end  of  six 
centuries  in  all  countries  conquered  by  the  Mohammedans,  it  is  fair  to 
conclude  that  they  were  cherished  and  maintained  with  great  atten 
tion  as  the  key-stone  of  their  civil  government.  While  the  administra 
tion  of  the  police,  and  the  collection  of  the  revenues,  were  left  in  the 
hands  of  these  local  chiefs,  every  part  of  the  new  territory  was  retained 
under  military  occupation  by  an  officer  of  rank,  and  a  considerable  body 
of  Mohammedan  soldiers.*  *  *  In  examining  the  details  of  Mohammedan 
history,  which  has  been  minute  in  recording  the  rise  and  progress  of 
all  these  kingdoms,  we  nowhere  discover  any  attempt  to  alter  the  sys 
tem  originally  adopted.  The  ministers,  the  nobles,  and  the  military 
chiefs,  all  bear  Mohammedan  names  and  titles,  but  no  account  is  given 
of  the  Hindoo  institutions  being  subverted,  or  Mohammedan  officers 
being  employed  in  the  minor  details  of  the  civil  administration. 

"It  would  appear  from  this  that  the  Moslems,  so  far  from  imposing 
their  own  laws  upon  their  subjects,  treated  the  customs  of  the  latter 
with  the  utmost  respect ;  and  that  they  did  so  because  experience  taught 
them  that  their  own  interests  were  advanced  by  a  line  of  policy  so  pru 
dent." 

Local  action  and  local  combination  are  everywhere  conspicuous 
in  the  history  of  this  country.  With  numerous  rulers,  some  of 
whom  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  acknowledged  the  superiority  of 
the  Sovereign  of  Delhi,  the  taxes  required  for  their  support  were 
heavy,  but  they  were  locally  expended,  and  if  the  cultivator  con 
tributed  too  large  a  portion  of  his  grain,  it  was  at  least  consumed 
in  a  neighbouring  market,  and  nothing  went  from  off  the  land. 
Manufactures,  too,  were  widely  spread,  and  thus  was  made  a  de 
mand  for  the  labour  not  required  in  agriculture.  "  On  the  coast 
of  Coromandel,"  says  Orme,*  "and  in  the  province  of  Bengal, 
when  at  some  distance  from  a  high  road  or  principal  town,  it  is 
difficult  to  find  a  village  in  which  every  man,  woman,  and  child  is 
not  employed  in  making  a  piece  of  cloth.  At  present/'  he  con 
tinues,  "  much  the  greatest  part  of  whole  provinces  are  employed 

*  Historical  Fragments,  409. 


182  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

in  this  single  manufacture."  Its  progress,  as  he  says,  "  includes 
no  less  than  a  description  of  the  lives  of  half  the  inhabitants  of 
Indostan."  While  employment  was  thus  locally  subdivided,  tending 
to  enable  neighbour  to  exchange  with  neighbour,  the  exchanges 
between  the  producers  of  food,  or  of  salt,  in  one  part  of  the  country 
and  the  producers  of  cotton  and  manufacturers  of  cloth  in  another, 
tended  to  the  production  of  commerce  with  more  distant  men,  and 
this  tendency  was  much  increased  by  the  subdivision  of  the  cotton 
manufacture  itself.  Bengal  was  celebrated  for  the  finest  muslins, 
the  consumption  of  which  at  Delhi,  and  in  Northern  India  generally, 
was  large,  while  the  Coromandel  coast  was  equally  celebrated  for 
the  best  chintzes  and  calicoes,  leaving  to  Western  India  the  manu 
facture  of  strong  and  inferior  goods  of  every  kind.  Under  these 
circumstances  it  is  no  matter  of  surprise  that  the  country  was  rich, 
and  that  its  people,  although  often  over-taxed,  and  sometimes 
plundered  by  invading  armies,  were  prosperous  in  a  high  degree. 

Nearly  a  century  has  now  elapsed  since,  by  the  battle  of  Plassey, 
British  power  was  established  in  India,  and  from  that  day  local 
action  has  tended  to  disappear,  and  centralization  to  take  its  place. 
From  its  date  to  the  close  of  the  century  there  was  a  rapidly  in 
creasing  tendency  toward  having  all  the  affairs  of  the  princes  and 
the  people  settled  by  the  representatives  of  the  Company  esta 
blished  in  Calcutta,  and  as  usual  in  such  cases,  the  country  was 
filled  with  adventurers,  very  many  of  whom  were  wholly  without 
principle,  men  whose  sole  object  was  that  of  the  accumulation  of 
fortune  by  any  means,  however  foul,  as  is  well  known  by  all  who 
are  familiar  with  the  indignant  denunciations  of  Burke.*  England 
was  thus  enriched  as  India  was  impoverished,  and  as  centralization 
was  more  and  more  established. 

*  "  The  country  was  laid  waste  with  fire  and  sword,  and  that  land  distin 
guished  above  most  others  by  the  cheerful  face  of  fraternal  government  and  pro 
tected  labour,  the  chosen  seat  of  cultivation  and  plenty,  is  now  almost  throughout 
a  dreary  desert  covered  with  rushes  and  briers,  and  jungles  full  of  wild  beasts.*  *  * 
That  universal,  systematic  breach  of  treaties,  which  had  made  the  British  faith 
proverbial  in  the  East!  These  intended  rebellions  are  one  of  the  Company's 
standing  resources.  When  money  has  been  thought  to  be  hoarded  up  anywhere, 
its  owners  are  universally  accused  of  rebellion,  until  they  are  acquitted  of  their 
money  and  their  treasons  at  once !  The  money  once  taken,  all  accusation,  trial, 
and  punishment  cads." — Speech  on  Fox's  East  India  BilL 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  133 

Step  by  step  the  power  of  the  Company  was  extended,  and 
everywhere  was  adopted  the  Hindoo  principle  that  the  sovereign 
was  proprietor  of  the  soil,  and  sole  landlord,  and  as  such  the  govern 
ment  claimed  to  be  entitled  to  one-half  of  the  gross  produce  of  the 
land.  "  Wherever/'  says  Mr.  Rickards,  long  an  eminent  servant 
of  the  Company, 

"The British  power  supplanted  that  of  the  Mohammedans  in  Bengal, 
we  did  not,  it  is  true,  adopt  the  sanguinary  part  of  their  creed  ;  but 
from  the  impure  fountain  of  their  financial  system,  did  we,  to  our 
shame,  claim  the  inheritance  to  a  right  to  seize  upon  half  the  gross  pro 
duce  of  the  land  as  a  tax ;  and  wherever  our  arms  have  triumphed,  we 
have  invariably  proclaimed  this  savage  right:  coupling  it  at  the  same 
time  with  the  senseless  doctrine  of  the  proprietary  right  to  these  lands 
being  also  vested  in  the  sovereign,  in  virtue  of  the  right  of  conquest/' 
— Rickards's  India,  vol.  i,  275. 

Under  the  earlier  Mohammedan  sovereigns,  this  land-tax,  now 
designated  as  rent,  had  been  limited  to  a  thirteenth,  and  from  that 
to  a  sixth  of  the  produce  of  the  land ;  but  in  the  reign  of  Akber 
(16th  century)  it  was  fixed  at  one-third,  numerous  other  taxes 
being  at  the  same  time  abolished.  With  the  decline  and  gradual 
dissolution  of  the  empire,  the  local  sovereigns  not  only  increased 
it,  but  revived  the  taxes  that  had  been  discontinued,  and  instituted 
others  of  a  most  oppressive  kind ;  all  of  which  were  continued  by 
the  Company,  while  the  land-tax  was  maintained  at  its  largest 
amount.  While  thus  imposing  taxes  at  discretion,  the  Company 
had  also  a  monopoly  of  trade,  and  it  could  dictate  the  prices  of  all 
it  had  to  sell,  as  well  as  of  all  that  it  needed  to  buy  ;  and  here  was 
a  further  and  most  oppressive  tax,  all  of  which  was  for  the  benefit 
of  absentee  landlords. 

With  the  further  extension  of  power,  the  demands  on  the  Com 
pany's  treasury  increased  without  an  increase  of  the  power  to  meet 
them ;  for  exhaustion  is  a  natural  consequence  of  absenteeism,  or 
centralization,  as  has  so  well  been  proved  in  Ireland.  The  people 
became  less  able  to  pay  the  taxes,  and  as  the  government  could  not 
be  carried  on  without  revenue,  a  permanent  settlement  was  made 
by  Lord  Cornwallis,  by  means  of  which  all  the  rights  of  village 
proprietors,  over  a  large  portion  of  Bengal,  were  sacrificed  in  favour 
of  the  Zemindars,  who  were  thus  at  once  constituted  great  landed 

12 


134  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

proprietors  and  absolute  masters  of  a  host  of  poor  tenants,  with 
power  to  punish  at  discretion  those  who  were  so  unfortunate  as 
not  to  be  able  to  pay  a  rent  the  amount  of  which  had  no  limit  but 
that  of  the  power  to  extort  it.  It  was  the  middleman  system  of 
Ireland  transplanted  to  India ;  but  the  results  were  at  first  unfa 
vourable  to  the  Zemindars,  as  the  rents,  for  which  they  themselves 
were  responsible  to  the  government,  were  so  enormous  that  all  the 
rack-renting  and  all  the  flogging  inflicted  upon  the  poor  cultivators 
could  not  enable  them  to  pay ;  and  but  few  years  elapsed  before 
the  Zemindars  themselves  were  sold  out  to  make  way  for  another 
set  as  keen  and  as  hard-hearted  as  themselves.  That  system  hav 
ing  failed  to  answer  the  purpose,  it  was  next  determined  to  arrest 
the  extension  of  the  permanent  settlement,  and  to  settle  with  each 
little  ryot,  or  cultivator,  to  the  entire  exclusion  of  the  village 
authorities,  by  whom,  under  the  native  governments,  the  taxes  had 
uniformly  been  so  equitably  and  satisfactorily  distributed.  The 
Kyotwar  system  was  thus  established,  and  how  it  has  operated  may 
be  judged  from  the  following  sketch,  presented  by  Mr.  Fullerton,  a 
member  of  the  Council  at  Madras  : — 

"  Imagine  the  revenue  leviable  through  the  agency  of  one  hundred 
thousand  revenue  officers,  collected  or  remitted  at  their  discretion, 
according  to  the  occupant's  means  of  paying,  whether  from  the  pro 
duce  of  his  land  or  his  separate  property ;  and  in  order  to  encourage 
every  man  to  act  as  a  spy  on  his  neighbour,  and  report  his  means  of 
paying,  that  he  may  eventually  save  himself  from  extra  demand,  ima 
gine  all  the  cultivators  of  a  village  liable  at  all  times  to  a  separate  de 
mand,  in  order  to  make  up  for  the  failure  of  one  or  more  individuals 
of  the  parish.  Imagine  collectors  to  every  county,  acting  under  the 
orders  of  a  board,  on  the  avowed  principle  of  destroying  all  competition 
for  labour  by  a  general  equalization  of  assessment,  seizing  and  sending 
back  runaways  to  each  other.  And,  lastly,  imagine  the  collector  the 
sole  magistrate  or  justice  of  the  peace  of  the  county,  through  the  me 
dium  and  instrumentality  of  whom  alone  any  criminal  complaint  of 
personal  grievance  suffered  by  the  subject  can  reach  the  superior  courts. 
Imagine,  at  the  same  time,  every  subordinate  officer  employed  in  the 
collection  of  the  land  revenue  to  be  a  police  officer,  vested  with  the 
power  to  fine,  confine,  put  in  the  stocks,  and  flog  any  inhabitant  with 
in  his  range,  on  any  charge,  without  oath  of  the  accuser  or  sworn  re 
corded  evidence  of  the  case."* 


*  Quoted  in  Thompson's  Lectures  on  India,  61. 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  *       135 

Any  improvement  in  cultivation  produced  an  immediate  increase 
of  taxation,  so  that  any  exertion  on  the  part  of  the  cultivator  would 
benefit  the  Company,  and  not  himself.  One-half  of  the  gross  pro 
duce*  may  be  assumed  to  have  been  the  average  annual  rent, 
although  in  many  cases  it  greatly  exceeded  that  proportion.  The 
Madras  Revenue  Board,  May  17th,  1817,  stated  that  the  "  con 
version  of  the  government  share  of  the  produce  (of  lands)  is  in 
some  districts  as  high  as  60  or  70  per  cent,  of  the  whole. "f 

It  might  be  supposed  that,  having  taken  so  large  a  share  of  the 
gross  produce,  the  cultivator  would  be  permitted  to  exist  on  the 
remainder,  but  such  is  not  the  case.  Mr.  Rickards  givesj  a  list  of 
sixty  other  taxes,  invented  by  the  sovereigns  or  their  agents,  many 
of  which  he  states  to  exist  at  the  present  day.  Those  who  have 
any  other  mode  of  employing  either  capital  or  labour,  in  addition 
to  the  cultivation  of  their  patches  of  land,  as  is  very  frequently 
the  case,  are  subject  to  the  following  taxes,  the  principle  of  which 
is  described  as  excellent  by  one  of  the  collectors,  December  1st, 
1812  :— 

"  The  Yeesabuddy,  or  tax  on  merchants,  traders,  and  shopkeepers  ; 
Mohturfa,  or  tax  on  weavers,  cotton  cleaners,  shepherds,  goldsmiths, 
braziers,  ironsmiths,  carpenters,  stone-cutters,  &c. ;  and  Bazeebab,  con 
sisting  of  smaller  taxes  annually  rented  out  to  the  highest  bidder.  The 
renter  was  thus  constituted  a  petty  chieftain,  with  power  to  exact  fees 
at  marriages,  religious  ceremonies ;  to  inquire  into  and  fine  the  mis 
conduct  of  females  in  families,  and  other  misdemeanours  ;  and  in  the 
exercise  of  their  privileges  would  often  urge  the  plea  of  engagements 
to  the  Cirkar  (government)  to  justify  extortion.  The  details  of  these 
taxes  are  too  long  to  be  given  in  this  place.  The  reader,  however, 
may  judge  of  the  operation  and  character  of  all  by  the  following  selec 
tion  of  one,  as  described  in  the  collector's  report : — '  The  mode  of  set 
tling  the  Mohturfa  on  looms  hitherto  has  been  very  minute ;  every 
circumstance  of  the  weaver's  family  is  considered,  the  number  of  days 
which  he  devotes  to  his  loom,  the  number  of  his  children,  the  assist 
ance  which  he  receives  from  them,  and  the  number  and  quality  of  the 
pieces  which  he  can  turn  out  in  a  month  or  year ;  so  that,  let  him 
exert  himself  as  he  will,  his  industry  will  always  be  taxed  to  the  high 
est  degree.'  This  mode  always  leads  to  such  details  that  the  govern 
ment  servants  cannot  enter  into  it,  and  the  assessment  of  the  tax  is,  in 


*  Colonel  Sykes  states  the  proportion  collected  in  the  Deocan  as  much  less 
than  is  above  given, 
f  Rickards,  vol.  i,  288,  %  Vol.  ii.  218. 


136  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

consequence,  left  a  great  deal  too  much  to  the  Curnums  of  the  villages. 
No  weaver  can  possibly  know  what  he  is  to  pay  to  the  Cirkar,  till  the 
demand  come  to  be  made  for  his  having  exerted  himself  through  the 
year ;  and  having  turned  out  one  or  two  pieces  of  cloth  more  than  he 
did  the  year  before,  though  his  family  and  looms  have  been  the  same, 
is  made  the  ground  for  his  being  charged  a  higher  Mohturfa,  and  at 
last,  instead  of  a  professional,  it  becomes  a  real  income  tax."* 

The  following  will  show  that  no  mode  of  employing  capital  is 
allowed  to  escape  the  notice  of  the  tax-gatherer : — 

"The  reader  will,  perhaps,  better  judge  of  the  inquisitorial  nature 
of  one  of  these  surveys,  or  pymashees,  as  they  are  termed  in  Malabar, 
by  knowing  that  upward  of  seventy  different  kinds  of  buildings — the 
houses,  shops,  or  warehouses  of  different  castes  and  professions — were 
ordered  to  be  entered  in  the  survey  accounts ;  besides  the  following 
'  implements  of  professions'  which  were  usually  assessed  to  the  public 
revenue,  viz. : 

"Oil-mills,  iron  manufactory,  toddy-drawer's  stills,  potter's  kiln, 
washerman's  stone,  goldsmith's  tools,  sawyer's  saw,  toddy-drawer's 
knives,  fishing-nets,  barber's  hones,  blacksmith's  anvils,  pack  bullocks, 
cocoa-nut  safe,  small  fishing-boats,  cotton-beater's  bow,  carpenter's 
tools,  large  fishing-boats,  looms,  salt  storehouse."! 

"  If  the  landlord  objected  to  the  assessment  on  trees  as  old  and  past 
bearing,  they  were,  one  and  all,  ordered  to  be  cut  down,  nothing  being 
allowed  to  stand  that  did  not  pay  revenue  to  the  state.  To  judge  of 
this  order,  it  should  be  mentioned  that  the  trees  are  valuable,  and  com 
monly  used  for  building,  in  Malabar.  To  fell  all  the  timber  on  a  man's 
estate  when  no  demand  existed  for  it  in  the  market,  and  merely  because 
its  stream  of  revenue  had  been  drained,  is  an  odd  way  of  conferring 
benefits  and  protecting  property."^ 

"  Having  myself,"  says  Mr.  Rickards,  "  been  principal  collector  of 
Malabar,  and  made,  during  my  residence  in  the  province,  minute  in 
quiries  into  the  produce  and  assessments  of  lands,  I  was  enabled  to 
ascertain  beyond  all  doubt,  and  to  satisfy  the  revenue  board  at  Madras, 
that  in  the  former  survey  of  the  province,  which  led  to  the  rebellion, 
lands  and  produce  were  inserted  in  the  pretended  survey  account 
which  absolutely  did  not  exist,  while  other  lands  were  assessed  to  the 
revenue  at  more  than  their  actual  produce."^ 

"  Fifty  per  cent,  on  the  assessment  is  allowed,"  says  Mr.  Campbell,  || 
"  as  a  reward  to  any  informer  of  concealed  cultivation,  &c. ;  and  it  is 
stated  that  there  are,  '  in  almost  every  village,  dismissed  accountants 
desirous  of  being  re-employed,  and  unemployed  servants  who  wish  to 
bring  themselves  to  notice/  whose  services  as  informers  can  be  relied 
on." 

A  system  like  this,  involving  the  most  prying  supervision  of  the 
affairs  of  each  individual,  and  in  which,  in  settling  the  tax  to  be 

*  Rickards,  voL  i.  500.  f  Ibid.   559.  J  Ibid.  558.  g  Ibid.  558. 

jj  Campbell's  Modern  India,  London,  1852,  356. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  137 

paid,  the  collector  takes  into  consideration  the  number  of  children* 
to  be  supported,  makes  the  poor  ryot  a  mere  slave  to  the  collec 
tor,  and  with  the  disadvantage  that  the  latter  has  no  pecuniary 
interest  in  the  preservation  of  his  life,  whereas  the  death  of  a  slave, 
who  constitutes  a  part  of  the  capital  of  his  owner,  is  a  severe  loss. 

The  tendency  thus  far  has  been,  as  we  see,  to  sweep  away  the 
rights  not  only  of  kings  and  princes,  but  of  all  the  natiATe  author 
ities,  and  to  centralize  in  the  hands  of  foreigners  in  Calcutta  the 
power  to  determine  for  the  cultivator,  the  artisan,  or  the  labourer, 
what  work  he  should  do,  and  how  much  of  its  products  he  might 
retain,  thus  placing  the  latter  in  precisely  the  position  of  a  mere 
slave  to  people  who  could  feel  no  interest  in  him  but  simply  as  a 
tax-payer,  and  who  were  represented  by  strangers  in  the  country, 
whose  authority  was  everywhere  used  by  the  native  officers  in  their 
employ,  to  enable  them  to  accumulate  fortunes  for  themselves. 

The  poor  manufacturer,  as  heavily  taxed  as  the  cultivator  of  the 
earth,  found  himself  compelled  to  obtain  advances  from  his  em 
ployers,  who,  in  their  turn,  claimed,  as  interest,  a  large  proportion 
of  the  little  profit  that  was  made.  The  Company's  agents,  like  the 
native  merchants,  advanced  the  funds  necessary  to  produce  the 
goods  required  for  Europe,  and  the  poor  workmen  are  described  as 
having  been  "in  a  state  of  dependence  almost  amounting  to  servi 
tude,  enabling  the  resident  to  obtain  his  labour  at  his  own  price.""f 

In  addition  to  the  taxes  already  described,  a  further  one  was  col 
lected  at  local  custom-houses,  on  all  exchanges  between  the  several 
parts  of  the  country ;  and  to  these  were  again  added  others  imposed 
by  means  of  monopolies  of  tobacco  and  opium,  and  of  salt,  one  of  the 
most  important  necessaries  of  life.  The  manufacture  of  coarse  salt 
from  the  earth  was  strictly  prohibited.  J  The  salt  lakes  of  the  upper 
country  furnish  a  supply  so  great  that  it  is  of  little  value  on  the  spot  ;§ 
but  these  lakes  being  even  yet  in  the  possession  of  native  princes, 
the  monopoly  could  then,  and  can  now,  be  maintained  only  by  aid 
of  strong  bands  of  revenue  officers,  whose  presence  renders  that 

*  Campbell's  Modern  India,  357. 
f  Baines's  History  of  the  Cotton  Manufacture. 
J  Campbell's  Modern  India,  382.  \  Ibid.  381. 

12* 


138  THE   SLAVE   TKADE, 

which  is  almost  worthless  on  one  side  of  an  imaginary  line  so  valu 
able  on  the  other  side  of  it  that  it  requires  the  produce  of  the  sixth 
part  of  the  labour  of  the  year  to  enable  the  poor  Hindoo  to  pur 
chase  salt  for  his  family.  Along  the  seashore  salt  is  abundantly 
furnished  by  nature,  the  solar  heat  causing  a  constant  deposition 
of  it  ]  but  the  mere  fact  of  collecting  it  was  constituted  an  offence 
punishable  by  fine  and  imprisonment,  and  the  quantity  collected 
by  the  Company's  officers  was  limited  to  that  required  for  meeting 
the  demand  at  a  monopoly  price,  all  the  remainder  being  regularly 
destroyed,  lest  the  poor  ryot  should  succeed  in  obtaining  for  him 
self,  at  cost,  such  a  supply  as  was  needed  to  render  palatable  the 
rice  which  constituted  almost  his  only  food.  The  system  has  since 
been  rendered  less  oppressive,  but  even  now  the  duty  is  ten  times 
greater  than  it  was  under  enlightened  Mohammedan  sovereigns.* 

Such  being  the  mode  of  collecting  the  revenue,  we  may  now 
look  to  its  distribution.  Under  the  native  princes  it  was,  to  a 
great  extent,  locally  expended,  whereas,  under  the  new  system,  all 
the  collections  by  government  or  by  individuals  tended  to  Calcutta, 
to  be  there  disposed  of.  Thence  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  it 
passed  to  England,  and  thus  was  established  a  perpetual  drain  that 
certainly  could  not  be  estimated  at  less  than  four  millions  of  pounds 
sterling  per  annum,  and  cannot  be  placed,  in  the  last  century,  at 
less  than  four  hundred  millions  of  pounds,  or  two  thousand  mil 
lions  of  dollars. 

The  difference  between  an  absentee  landlord  expending  at  a  dis 
tance  all  his  rents,  and  a  resident  one  distributing  it  again  among 
his  tenants  in  exchange  for  services,  and  the  difference  in  the  value 
of  the  products  of  the  land  resulting  from  proximity  to  market,  are 
so  well  exhibited  in  the  following  passage  from  a  recent  work  on 
India,  that  the  reader  cannot  fail  to  profit  by  its  perusal : — 

"  The  great  part  of  the  wheat,  grain,  and  other  exportable  land 
produce  which  the  people  consume,  as  far  as  we  have  yet  come,  is 
drawn  from  our  Nerbudda  districts,  and  those  of  Malwa  which  border 


upon  them  ;  and  par  consequent,  the  price  has  been  rapidly  increasing  as 
we  recede  from  them  in  our  advance  northward.   Were  the  soil  of  those 


*  Campbell's  Modern  India,  105. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  139 

Nerbudda  districts,  situated  as  they  are  at  such  a  distance  from  any 
great  market  for  their  agricultural  products,  as  bad  as  it  is  in  the 
parts  of  Bundelcund  that  I  came  over,  no  net  surplus  revenue  could 
possibly  be  drawn  from  them  in  the  present  state  of  arts  and  industry. 
The  high  prices  paid  here  for  land  produce,  arising  from  the  necessity 
of  drawing  a  great  part  of  what  is  consumed  from  such  distant  lands, 
enables  the  Rajahs  of  these  Bundelcund  states  to  draw  the  large 
revenue  they  do.  These  chiefs  expend  the  whole  of  their  revenue  in 
the  maintenance  of  public  establishments  of  one  kind  or  other  ;  and  as 
the  essential  articles  of  subsistence,  wheat  and  grain,  &c.,  which  are 
produced  in  their  own  districts,  or  those  immediately  around  them, 
are  not  sufficient  for  the  supply  of  these  establishments,  they  must 
draw  them  from  distant  territories.  All  this  produce  is  brought  on 
the  backs  of  bullocks,  because  there  is  no  road  from  the  districts 
whence  they  obtain  it,  over  which  a  wheeled  carriage  can  be  drawn 
with  safety ;  and  as  this  mode  of  transit  is  very  expensive,  the  price 
of  the  produce,  when  it  reaches  the  capitals,  around  which  these  local 
establishments  are  concentrated,  becomes  very  high.  They  must  pay 
a  price  equal  to  the  collective  cost  of  purchasing  and  bringing  this 
substance  from  the  most  distant  districts,  to  which  they  are  at  any 
time  obliged  to  have  recourse  for  a  supply,  or  they  will  not  be  supplied ; 
and  as  there  cannot  be  two  prices  for  the  same  thing  in  the  same 
market,  the  wheat  and  grain  produced  in  the  neighbourhood  of  one  of 
these  Bundelcund  capitals,  fetch  as  high  a  price  there  as  that  brought 
from  the  most  remote  districts  on  the  banks  of  the  Nerbudda  river ; 
while  it  costs  comparatively  nothing  to  bring  it  from  the  former  lands 
to  the  markets.  Such  lands,  in  consequence,  yield  a  rate  of  rent  much 
greater  compared  with  their  natural  powers  of  fertility  than  those  of 
the  remotest  districts  whence  produce  is  drawn  for  these  markets  or 
capitals;  and  as  all  the  lands  are  the  property  of  the  Rajahs,  they 
draw  all  these  rents  as  revenue. 

"Were  we  to  take  this  revenue,  which  the  Rajahs  now  enjoy,  in 
tribute  for  the  maintenance  of  public  establishments  concentrated  at 
distant  seats,  all  these  local  establishments  would  of  course  be  at  once 
disbanded  ;  and  all  the  effectual  demand  which  they  afford  for  the  raw 
agricultural  produce  of  distant  districts  would  cease.  The  price  of 
the  produce  would  diminish  in  proportion ;  and  with  it  the  value  of 
the  lands  of  the  districts  around  such  capitals.  Hence  the  folly  of 
conquerors  and  paramount  powers,  from  the  days  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans  down  to  those  of  Lord  Hastings  and  Sir  John  Malcolm,  who 
were  all  bad  political  economists,  supposing  that  conquered  and 
ceded  territories  could  always  be  made  to  yield  to  a  foreign  state  the 
same  amount  of  gross  revenue  they  had  paid  to  their  domestic  govern 
ment,  whatever  their  situation  with  reference  to  the  markets  for  their 
produce — whatever  the  state  of  their  arts  and  their  industry — and  what 
ever  the  character  and  extent  of  the  local  establishments  maintained 
out  of  it.  The  settlements  of  the  land  revenue  in  all  the  territories 
acquired  in  central  India  during  the  Mahratta  war,  which  ended,  in 
1817,  were  made  upon  the  supposition,  that  the  lands  would  continue 
to  pay  the  same  rate  of  rent  under  the  new,  as  they  had  paid  under  the 
old  government,  uninfluenced  by  the  diminution  of  all  local  establish- 


140 

raents,  civil  and  military,  to  one-tenth  of  what  they  had  been ;  that, 
under  the  new  order  of  things,  all  the  waste  lands  must  be  brought 
into  tillage;  and  be  able  to  pay  as  high  a  rate  of  rent  as  before  tillage  ; 
and,  consequently,  that  the  aggregate  available  net  revenue  must  greatly 
and  rapidly  increase !  Those  who  had  the  making  of  the  settlements, 
and  the  governing  of  these  new  territories,  did  not  consider  that  the 
diminution  of  every  establishment  was  the  removal  of  a  market — of  an 
effectual  demand  for  land  produce ;  and  that  when  all  the  waste  lands 
ehould  be  brought  into  tillage,  the  whole  would  deteriorate  in  fertility, 
from  the  want  of  fallows,  under  the  prevailing  system  of  agriculture, 
which  afforded  the  lands  no  other  means  of  renovation  from  over  crop 
ping.  The  settlements  of  the  land  revenue  which  were  made  through 
out  our  new  acquisitions  upon  these  fallacious  assumptions,  of  course 
failed.  During  a  series  of  quinquennial  settlements,  the  assessment 
has  been  everywhere  gradually  reduced  to  about  two-thirds  of  what  it 
was  when  our  rule  began ;  and  to  less  than  one-half  of  what  Sir  John 
Malcolm,  and  all  the  other  local  authorities,  and  even  the  worthy  Mar 
quis  of  Hastings  himself,  under  the  influence  of  their  opinions,  expected 
it  would  be.  The  land  revenues  of  the  native  princes  of  central  India, 
who  reduced  their  public  establishments,  which  the  new  order  of  things 
seemed  to  render  useless,  and  thereby  diminished  their  only  markets 
for  the  raw  produce  of  their  lands,  have  been  everywhere  falling  off  in 
the  same  proportion;  and  scarcely  one  of  them  now  draws  two-thirds 
of  the  income  he  drew  from  the  same  lands  in  1817. 

"There  are  in  the  valley  of  the  Nerbudda,  districts  that  yield  a  great 
deal  more  produce  every  year  than  either  Orcha,  Jansee,  or  Duteea; 
and  yet,  from  the  want  of  the  same  domestic  markets,  they  do  not 
yield  one-fourth  of  the  amount  of  land  revenue.  The  lands  are,  how 
ever,  rated  equally  high  to  the  assessment,  in  proportion  to  their  value 
to  the  farmers  and  cultivators.  To  enable  them  to  yield  a  larger  re 
venue  to  government,  they  require  to  have  larger  establishments  as 
markets  for  land  produce.  These  establishments  may  be  either  pub 
lic,  and  paid  by  government,  or  they  may  be  private,  as  manufactories, 
by  which  the  land  produce  of  these  districts  would  be  consumed  by 
people  employed  in  investing  the  value  of  their  labour  in  commodities 
suited  to  the  demand  of  distant  markets,  and  more  valuable  than  land 
produce  in  proportion  to  their  weight  and  bulk.  These  are  the  esta 
blishments  which  government  should  exert  itself  to  introduce  and  foster, 
since  the  valley  of  the  Nerbudda,  in  addition  to  a  soil  exceedingly  fer 
tile,  has  in  its  whole  line,  from  its  source  to  its  embouchure,  rich  beds 
of  coal  reposing  for  the  use  of  future  generations,  under  the  sandstone 
of  the  Sathpore  and  Vindhya  ranges  ;  and  beds  no  less  rich  of  very  fine 
iron.  These  advantages  have  not  yet  been  justly  appreciated ;  but  they 
will  be  so  by  and  by.';* 

From  the  concluding  lines  of  this  extract  the  reader  will  see 
that  India  is  abundantly  supplied  with  fuel  and  iron  ore,  and  that 
if  she  has  not  good  machinery,  tjje  deficiency  is  not  chargeable  to 
nature.  At  the  close  of  the  last  century  cotton  abounded,  and  to  so 

#  Rambles  in  India,  by  Col.  Sleeman,  vol.  i.  p.  296. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  141 

X 

great  an  extent  was  the  labour  of  men,  women,  and  children  ap 
plied  to  its  conversion  into  cloth,  that,  even  with  their  imperfect 
machinery,  they  not  only  supplied  the  home  demand  for  the  beau 
tiful  tissues  of  Dacca  and  the  coarse  products  of  Western  India,  but 
they  exported  to  other  parts  of  the  world  no  less  than  200,000,000 
of  pieces  per  annum.*  Exchanges  with  every  part  of  the  world 
were  so  greatly  in  their  favour  that  a  rupee  which  would  now 
sell  for  but  Is.  lOrf.  or  44  cents,  was  then  worth  2s.  Sd.  or  64 
cents.  The  Company  had  a  monopoly  of  collecting  taxes  in  India, 
but  in  return  it  preserved  to  the  people  the  control  of  their  domestic 
market,  by  aid  of  which  they  were  enabled  to  convert  their  rice, 
their  salt,  and  their  cotton,  into  cloth  that  could  be  cheaply  carried 
to  the  most  remote  parts  of  the  world.  Such  protection  was  needed, 
because  while  England  prohibited  the  export  of  even  a  single  col 
lier  who  might  instruct  the  people  of  India  in  the  mode  of  mining 
coal — of  a  steam  engine  to  pump  water  or  raise  coal,  or  a  mechanic 
who  could  make  one — of  a  worker  in  iron  who  might  smelt  the  ore 
— of  a  spinning-jenny  or  power-loom,  or  of  an  artisan  who  could 
give  instruction  in  the  use  of  such  machines — and  thus  systematic 
ally  prevented  them  from  keeping  pace  with  improvement  in  the 
rest  of  the  world, — she  at  the  same  time  imposed  very  heavy  duties 
on  the  produce  of  Indian  looms  received  in  England.  The  day 
was  at  hand,  however,  when  that  protection  was  to  disappear.  The 
Company  did  not,  it  was  said,  export  sufficiently  largely  of  the  pro 
duce  of  British  industry,  and  in  1813  the  trade  to  India  was  thrown 
open — l>ut  the  restriction  on  the  export  of  machinery  and  artisans 
teas  maintained  in  full  force;  and  thus  were  the  poor  and  ignorant 
people  of  that  country  exposed  to  "  unlimited  competition,"  with 
a  people  possessed  of  machinery  ten  times  more  effective  than  their 
own,  while  not  only  by  law  deprived  of  the  power  to  purchase  ma 
chinery,  but  also  of  the  power  of  competing  in  the  British  market 
with  the  produce  of  British  looms.  Further  than  this,  every  loom 
in  India,  and  every  machine  calculated  to  aid  the  labourer,  was  sub 
ject  to  a  tax  that  increased  with  every  increase  in  the  industry  of 

*  Speech  of  Mr.  G.  Thompson  in  the  House  of  Commons. 


142 

its  owner,  and  in  many  cases  absorbed  the  whole  profit  derived 
from  its  use.*  Such  were  the  circumstances  under  which  the  poor 
Hindoo  was  called  upon  to  encounter,  unprotected,  the  "unlimited 
competition"  of  foreigners  in  his  own  market.  It  was  freedom  of 
trade  all  on  one  side.  Four  years  after,  the  export  of  cottons  from 
Bengal  still  amounted  to  £1,659, 994, f  but  ten  years  later  it  had  de 
clined  to  £285,121  •  and  at  the  end  of  twenty  years  we  find  a  whole 
year  pass  by  without  the  export  of  a  single  piece  of  cotton  cloth  from 
'  Calcutta,  the  whole  of  the  immense  trade  that  existed  but  half  a  cen 
tury  since  having  disappeared.  What  were  the  measures  used  for 
the  accomplishment  of  the  work  of  destroying  a  manufacture  that 
gave  employment  and  food  to  so  many  millions  of  the  poor  people 
of  the  country,  will  be  seen  on  a  perusal  of  the  following  memorial, 
which  shows  that  while  India  was  denied  machinery,  and  also  de 
nied  access  to  the  British  market,  she  was  forced  to  receive  British 
cottons  free  of  all  duty : — 

"  Petition  of  Natives  of  Bengal,  relative  to  Duties  on  Cotton  and  Silk. 

"  CALCUTTA,  1st  Sept.  1831. 

"  To  the  Right  Honourable  the  Lords  of  His  Majesty's  Privy  Council 
for  Trade,  &c. 

"  The  humble  Petition  of  the  undersigned  Manufacturers  and  Dealers 
in  Cotton  and  Silk  Piece  Goods,  the  fabrics  of  Bengal ; 

"  SHOWETH — That  of  late  years  your  Petitioners  have  found  their 
business  nearly  superseded  by  the  introduction  of  the  fabrics  of  Great 
Britain  into  Bengal,  the  importation  of  which  augments  every  year,  to 
the  great  prejudice  of  the  native  manufacturers. 

"  That  the  fabrics  of  Great  Britain  are  consumed  in  Bengal,  without 
any  duties  being  levied  thereon  to  protect  the  native  fabrics. 

"That  the  fabrics  of  Bengal  are  charged  with  the  following  duties 
when  they  are  used  in  Great  Britain — 

"On  manufactured  cottons,  10  per  cent. 
"On  manufactured  silks,  24  per  cent. 

"Your  Petitioners  most  humbly  implore  your  Lordships'  considera 
tion  of  these  circumstances,  and  they  feel  confident  that  no  disposition 
exists  in  England  to  shut  the  door  against  the  industry  of  any  part  of 
the  inhabitants  of  this  great  empire. 

"They  therefore  pray  to  be  admitted  to  the  privilege  of  British  sub 
jects,  and  humbly  entreat  your  Lordships  to  allow  the  cotton  and  silk 
fabrics  of  Bengal  to  be  used  in  Great  Britain  'free  of  duty/  or  at  the 

*  See  page  133  ante. 

f  Chapman's  Commerce  and  Cotton  of  India,  74. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  143 

pame   rate  which  may  be  charged  on  British  fabrics  consumed  in 
Bengal. 

"  Your  Lordships  must  be  aware  of  the  immense  advantages  the 
British  manufacturers  derive  from  their  skill  in  constructing  and  using 
machinery,  which  enables  them  to  undersell  the  unscientific  manufac 
turers  of  Bengal  in  their  own  country :  and,  although  your  Petitioners 
are  not  sanguine  in  expecting  to  derive  any  great  advantage  from 
having  their  prayer  granted,  their  minds  would  feel  gratified  by  such 
a  manifestation  of  your  Lordships'  good-will  toward  them ;  and  such 
an  instance  of  justice  to  the  natives  of  India  would  not  fail  to  endear 
the  British  government  to  them. 

"They  therefore  confidently  trust  that  your  Lordships'  righteous 
consideration  will  be  extended  to  them  as  British  subjects,  without  ex 
ception  of  sect,  country,  or  colour. 

"And  your  Petitioners,  as  in  duty  bound,  will  ever  pray." 
[Signed  by  117  natives  of  high  respectability.] 

The  object  sought  to  be  accomplished  would  not  have,  however, 
been  attained  by  granting  the  prayer  of  this  most  reasonable  and 
humble  petition.  When  the  export  of  cotton,  woollen,  and 
steam  machinery  was  prohibited,  it  was  done  with  a  view  of  com 
pelling  all  the  wool  of  the  world  to  come  to  England  to  be  spun 
and  woven,  thence  to  be  returned  to  be  worn  by  those  who  raised 
it — thus  depriving  the  people  of  the  world  of  all  power  to  apply 
their  labour  otherwise  than  in  taking  from  the  earth  cotton,  sugar, 
indigo,  and  other  commodities  for  the  supply  of  the  great  "work 
shop  of  the  world."  How  effectually  that  object  has  been  accom 
plished  in  India,  will  be  seen  from  the  following  facts.  From  the 
date  of  the  opening  of  the  trade  in  1813,  the  domestic  manufacture 
and  the  export  of  cloth  have  gradually  declined  until  the  latter  has 
finally  ceased,  and  the  export  of  raw  cotton  to  England  has  gradu 
ally  risen  until  it  has  attained  a  height  of  about  sixty  millions  of 
pounds,*  while  the  import  of  twist  from  England  has  risen  to 
twenty-five  millions  of  pounds,  and  of  cloth,  to  two  hundred  and 
sixty  millions  of  yards,  weighing  probably  fifty  millions  of  pounds, 
which,  added  to  the  twist,  make  seventy-five  millions,  requiring  for 
their  production  somewhat  more  than  eighty  millions  of  raw  cotton. 
We  see  thus  that  every  pound  of  the  raw  material  sent  to  England 
is  returned.  The  cultivator  receives  for  it  one  penny,  and  when 

*  Chapman,  Cotton  and  Commerce  of  India,  28 


144  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

it  returns  to  him  in  the  form  of  cloth,  he  pays  for  it  from  one  to 
'two  shillings,  the  whole  difference  being  absorbed  in  the  payment 
of  the  numerous  brokers,  transporters,  manufacturers,  and  opera 
tives,  men,  women,  and  children,  that  have  thus  been  interposed 
between  the  producer  and  the  consumer.  The  necessary  conse 
quence  of  this  Jhas  been  that  everywhere  manufactures  have  disap 
peared.  Dacca,  one  of  the  principal  seats  of  the  cotton  manufac 
ture,  contained  90,000  houses,  but  its  trade  had  already  greatly 
fallen  off  even  at  the  date  of  the  memorial  above  given,  and  its 
splendid  buildings,  factories,  and  churches  are  now  a  mass  of  ruins 
and  overgrown  with  jungle.  The  cotton  of  the  district  found  itself 
compelled  to  go  to  England  that  it  might  there  be  twisted  and  sent 
back  again,  thus  performing  a  voyage  of  20,000  miles  in  search  of 
the  little  spindle,  because  it  was  a  part  of  the  British  policy  not  to 
permit  the  spindle  anywhere  to  take  its  place  by  the  side  of  the 
cultivator  of  cotton. 

The  change  thus  effected  has  been  stated  in  a  recent  official  re 
port  to  have  been  attended  with  ruin  and  distress,  to  which  "no 
parallel  can  be  found  in  the  annals  of  commerce."  What  were 
the  means  by  which  it  was  effected  is  shown  in  the  fact  that  at  this 
period  Sir  Robert  Peel  stated  that  in  Lancashire,  children  were 
employed  fifteen  and  seventeen  hours  per  day  during  the  week, 
and  on  Sunday  morning,  from  six  until  twelve,  cleaning  the  ma 
chinery.  In  Coventry,  ninety-six  hours  in  the  week  was  the  time 
usually  required ;  and  of  those  employed,  many  obtained  but  2s.  9d. 
— 66  cents — for  a  week's  wages.  The  object  to  be  accomplished 
was  that  of  underworking  the  poor  Hindoo,  and  driving  him  from 
the  market  of  the  world,  after  which  he  was  to  be  driven  from  his 
own.  The  mode  of  accomplishment  was  that  of  cheapening  labour 
and  enslaving  the  labourer  at  home  and  abroad. 

With  the  decline-of  manufactures  there  has  ceased  to  be  a  demand 
for  the  services  of  women  or  children  in  the  work  of  conversion, 
and  they  are  forced  either  to  remain  idle,  or  to  seek  employment  ^n 
the  field;  and  here  we  have  one  of  the  distinguishing  marks  of  a 
state  of  slavery.  The  men,  too,  who  were  accustomed  to  fill  up 
the  intervals  of  other  employments  in  pursuits  connected  with  the 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  145 

cotton  manufacture,  were  also  driven  to  the  field — >and  all  demand 
for  labour,  physical  or  intellectual,  was  at  an  end,  except  so  far  as 
was  needed  for  raising  rice,  indigo,  sugar,  or  cotton.  The  rice 
itself  they  were  not  permitted  to  clean,  being  debarred  therefrom 
by  a  duty  double  that  which  was  paid  on  paddy,  or  rough  rice, 
on  its  import  into  England.  The  poor  grower  of  cotton,  after  pay 
ing  to  the  government  seventy-eight  per  cent.*  of  the  product  of 
his  labour,  found  himself  deprived  of  the  power  to  trade  directly 
with  the  man  of  the  loom,  and  forced  into  <(  unlimited  competition" 
with  the  better  machinery  and  almost  un taxed  labour  of  our  Southern 
States;  and  thereby  subjected  to  "the  mysterious  variations  of  fo 
reign  markets"  in  which  the  fever  of  speculation  was  followed  by  the 
chill  of  revulsion  with  a  rapidity  and  frequency  that  set  at  naught 
all  calculation.  If  our  crops  were  small,  his  English  customers 
would  take  his  cotton;  but  when  he  sent  over  more  next  year, 
there  had,  perhaps,  been  a  good  season  here,  and  the  Indian  article 
became  an  absolute  drug  in  the  market.  It  was  stated  some  time 
since,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  one  gentleman,  Mr.  Turner, 
had  thrown  £7000  worth  of  Indian  cotton  upon  a  dunghill,  because 
he  could  find  no  market  for  it. 

It  will  now  readily  be  seen  that  the  direct  effect  of  thus  compel 
ling  the  export  of  cotton  from  India  was  to  increase  the  quantity 
pressing  on  the  market  of  England,  and  thus  to  lower  the  price  of 
all  the  cotton  of  the  world,  including  that  required  for  domestic 
consumption.  The  price  of  the  whole  Indian  crop  being  thus  ren 
dered  dependent  on  that  which  could  be  realized  for  a  small  sur 
plus  that  would  have  no  existence  but  for  the  fact  that  the  domes 
tic  manufacture  had  been  destroyed,  it  will  readily  be  seen  how 
enormous  has  been  the  extent  of  injury  inflicted  upon  the  poor 
cultivator  by  the  forcible  separation  of  the  plough  and  the  loom,  and 
the  destruction  of  the  power  of  association.  Again,  while  the  price 


*  Taking  the  last  six  of  the  thirteen  years,  the  price  of  cotton  was  Id.  a  pound, 
and  if  the  produce  of  a  beegah  was  6s.  6c?.,  of  this  the  government  took  sixty-eight 
per  cent,  of  the  gross  produce ;  and  taking  the  two  years  1841  and  1842,  cotton 
was  IJrf.  a  pound,  and  the  produce  of  a  beegah  was  5«.  8d.  On  this  the  assess. 
ment  was  actually  equal  to  seventy-eight  per  cent,  on  the  gross  produce  of  the 
land. — Speech,  of  Mr.  Briyht  in  the  House  of  Common*. 

13 


146  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

of  cotton  is  fixed  in  England,  there,  too,  is  fixed  the  price  of  cloth, 
and  such  is  the  case  with  the  sugar  and. the  indigo  to  the  produc 
tion  of  which  these  poor  people  are  forced  to  devote  themselves ; 
and  thus  are  they  rendered  the  mere  slaves  of  distant  men,  who 
determine  what  they  shall  receive  for  all  they  have  to  sell,  and 
what  they  shall  pay  for  all  they  require  to  purchase.  Centraliza 
tion  and  slavery  go  thus  always  hand  in  hand  with  each  other. 

The  ryots  are,  as  we  see,  obliged  to  pay  sixteen  or  eighteen 
pence  for  the  pound  of  cotton  that  has  yielded  them  but  one 
penny ;  and  all  this  difference  is  paid  for  the  labour  of  other  peo 
ple  while  idle  themselves. 

"  A  great  part  of  the  time  of  the  labouring  population  in  India  is," 
says  Mr.  Chapman,*  "  spent  in  idleness.  I  don't  say  this  to  blame 
them  in  the  smallest  degree.  Without  the  means  of  exporting  heavy 
and  crude  surplus  agricultural  produce,  and  with  scanty  means,  whe 
ther  of  capital,  science,  or  manual  skill,  for  elaborating  on  the  spot 
articles  fitted  to  induce  a  higher  state  of  enjoyment  and  of  industry  in 
the  mass  of  the  people,  they  have  really  no  inducement  to  exertion 
beyond  that  which  is  necessary  to  gratify  their  present  and  very 
limited  wishes ;  those  wishes  are  unnaturally  low,  inasmuch  as  they 
do  not  afford  the  needful  stimulus  to  the  exercise  requisite  to  intellec 
tual  and  moral  improvement;  and  it  is  obvious  that  there  is  no  remedy 
for  this  but  extended  intercourse.  Meanwhile,  probably  the  half  of  the 
human  time  and  energy  of  India  runs  to  mere  waste.  Surely  we  need 
not  wonder  at  the  poverty  of  the  country." 

Assuredly  we  need  not.  They  are  idle  perforce.  With  indif 
ferent  means  of  communication,  their  cotton  and  their  food  could 
readily  travel  in  the  form  of  doth,  and  they  could  consume  libe 
rally  of  food  and  clothing  j  but  they  find  themselves  now  forced  to 
export  every  thing  in  its  rudest  form,  and  this  they  are  to  do  in  a 
country  that  is  almost  without  roads.  The  manner  in  which  these 
raw  products  now  travel  may  be  seen  on  a  perusal  of  the  following 
passage  from  the  London  Economist: — 

"The  cotton  is  brought  on  oxen,  carrying  1GO  pounds  each,  at  the 
extreme  rate,  in  fair  weather,  of  seven  miles  a  day  for  a  continuance, 
and  at  a  price  of  about  5s.  for  each  hundred  miles.  If  we  take  the 
average  distance  to  Mirzapore  at  500  miles,  each  pound  of  cotton  costs 
in  transit  alone  above  2%d.  It  has  thence  to  be  borne  by  water-carriage 

*  Chapman's  Commerce  and  Cotton  of  India,  110. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  147 

nearly  800  miles  farther  on  to  Calcutta.  *  *  *  The  great  cotton- 
growing  districts  are  in  the  northern  portion  of  the  Peninsula,  embrac 
ing  Guzerat,  and  a  vast  tract  called  the  Deccan,  lying  between  the 
Satpoora  range  of  hills  and  the  course  of  the  Kishna  River.  General 
Briggs  says — '  The  cotton  from  the  interior  of  the  country  to  the  coast 
at  Bombay  occupies  a  continuous  journey  of  from  one  to  two  months, 
according  to  the  season  of  the  year ;  while  in  the  rains  the  route  is 
wholly  impassable,  and  the  traffic  of  the  country  is  at  a  stand.' 

"  In  the  absence  of  a  defined  road,  even  the  carriers,  with  their 
pack-cattle,  are  compelled  to  travel  by  daylight,  to  prevent  the  loss  of 
their  bullocks  in  the  jungles  they  have  to  pass  through,  and  this  under 
a  burning  sun  of  from  100  to  140  degrees  Fahrenheit.  The  droves  of 
oxen  are  never  so  few  as  one  hundred,  and  sometimes  exceed  a  thou 
sand.  Every  morning  after  daylight  each  animal  has  to  be  saddled, 
and  the  load  lifted  on  him  by  two  men,  one  on  each  side ;  and  before 
they  are  all  ready  to  move  the  sun  has  attained  a  height  which  ren 
ders  the  heat  to  an  European  oppressive.  The  whole  now  proceeds  at 
the  rate  of  about  two  miles  an  hour,  and  seldom  performs  a  journey 
of  more  than  eight  miles ;  but,  as  the  horde  rests  every  fourth  day, 
the  average  distance  is  but  six  miles  a  day.  If  the  horde  is  overtaken 
by  rain,  the  cotton,  saturated  by  moisture,  becomes  heavy,  and  the 
black  clayey  soil,  through  which  the  whole  line  of  road  lies,  sinks 
under  the  feet  of  a  man  above  the  ankle,  and  under  that  of  a  laden  ox 
to  the  knees. 

"  In  this  predicament  the  cargo  of  cotton  lies  sometimes  for  weeks 
on  the  ground,  and  the  merchant  is  ruined." 

"  So  miserably  bad,"  says  another  writer,  "  are  the  existing  means 
of  communication  with  the  interior,  that  many  of  the  most  valuable 
articles  of  produce  are,  for  want  of  carriage  and  a  market,  of  ten  allowed 
to  perish  on  the  farm,  while  the  cost  of  that  which  found  its  way  to  the 
port  was  enormously  enhanced ;  but  the  quantity  did  not  amount  to 
above  20  per  cent,  of  the  whole  of  the  produce,  the  remainder  of  the 
articles  always  being  greatly  deteriorated." 

It  will  scarcely  be  difficult  now  to  understand  why  it  is  that 
cotton  yields  the  cultivator  but  a  penny  per  pound.  Neither  will 
it  be  difficult,  seeing  that  the  local  manufacturers  have  everywhere 
been  ruined,  to  understand  why  the  producer  of  the  more  bulky 
food  is  in  a  condition  that  is  even  worse,  now  that  the  consumer 
has  disappeared  from  his  side.  If  the  crop  is  large,  grain  is  a  drug 
for  which  scarcely  any  price  can  be  obtained  ;*  and  if  it  is  small, 
the  people  perish,  by  thousands  and  ten  of  thousands,  of  famine, 
because,  in  the  existing  state  of  the  roads,  there  can  be  little  or 
no  exchange  of  raw  products.  In  the  first  case  the  cultivator  is 

*  Chapman,  167. 


148  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

ruined,  because  it  requires  almost  the  whole  crop  to  pay  the  taxes, 
In  the  other  he  is  starved ;  and  all  this  is  a  necessary  consequence 
of  a  system  that  excludes  the  great  middle  class  of  mechanics  and 
other  working-men,  and  resolves  a  great  nation  into  a  mass  of 
wretched  cultivators,  slaves  to  a  few  grasping  money  lenders.  Under 
such  circumstances,  the  accumulation  of  any  thing  like  capital  is  im 
possible.  "  None/'  says  Colonel  Sleeman,*  "  have  stock  equal  to 
half  their  rent."  They  are  dependent  everywhere  on  the  produce 
of  the  year,  and  however  small  may  be  its  amount,  the  taxes  must 
be  paid,  and  of  all  that  thus  goes  abroad  nothing  is  returned.  The 
soil  gets  nothing.^  It  is  not  manured,  nor  can  it  be  under  a  sys 
tem  of  absenteeism  like  this,  and  its  fertility  everywhere  declines, 
as  is  shown  by  the  following  extracts : — 

"  Formerly,  the  governments  kept  no  faith  with  their  land-holders 
and  cultivators,  exacting  ten  rupees  where  they  had  bargained  for  five, 
whenever  they  found  the  crops  good  ;  but,  in  spite  of  all  this  zolm, 
(oppression,)  there  was  then  more  burkut  (blessings  from  above)  than 
now.  The  lands  yielded  more  returns  to  the  cultivator,  and  he  could 
maintain  his  little  family  better  upon  five  acres  than  he  can  now  upon 
ten."J 

"  The  land  requires  rest  from  labour,  as  well  as  men  and  bullocks ; 
and  if  you  go  on  sowing  wheat  and  other  exhausting  crops,  it  will  go 
on  yielding  less  and  less  returns,  and  at  last  will  not  be  worth  the 
tilling.''^ 

"  There  has  been  a  manifest  falling  off  in  the  returns."  || 

The  soil  is  being  exhausted,  and  every  thing  necessarily  goes  back 
ward.  Trees  are  cut  down,  but  none  are  planted ;  and  the  former 
sites  of  vast  groves  are  becoming  arid  wastes,  a  consequence  of  which 
is,  that  droughts  become  from  year  to  year  more  frequent. 

"The  clouds,"  says  Colonel  Sleeman, 1[  "brought  up  from  the  south 
ern  ocean  by  the  south-east  trade-wind  are  attracted,  as  they  pass  over 
the  island,  by  the  forests  in  the  interior,  and  made  to  drop  their  stores 
in  daily  refreshing  showers.  In  many  other  parts  of  the  world,  govern 
ments  have  now  become  aware  of  this  mysterious  provision  of  nature, 
and  have  adopted  measures  to  take  advantage  of  it  for  the  benefit  of 
the  people ;  and  the  dreadful  sufferings  to  which  the  people  of  those 
of  our  districts,  which  have  been  the  most  denuded  of  their  trees, 
have  been  of  late  years  exposed  from  the  want  of  rain  in  due  season, 
may,  perhaps,  induce  our  Indian  government  to  turn  its  thoughts  to 
the  subject." 

*  Rambles,  vol.  i.  205.  |  Ibid-  268-  t  Ibid-  vol.  ii.  147. 

Ibid.  153.  Ibid.  185.  Ibid.  199. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  140 

In  former  times  extensive  works  were  constructed  for  irrigating 
the  land,  but  they  are  everywhere  going  to  ruin — thus  proving 
that  agriculture  cannot  flourish  in  the  absence  of  the  mechanic  arts : 

"  In  Candeish,  very  many  bunds  [river-banks  formed  for  purposes  of 
irrigation]  which  were  kept  in  repair  under  former  governments,  have, 
under  ours,  fallen  to  decay ;  nevertheless,  not  only  has  the  population 
increased  considerably  under  our  rule,  but  in  1846  or  1847,  the  col 
lector  was  obliged  to  grant  remission  of  land  tax,  'because  the  abund 
ance  of  former  years  lay  stagnating  in  the  province,  and  the  low  prices 
of  grain  from  that  cause  prevented  the  ryots  from  being  able  to  pay 
their  fixed  land  assessment.' ;;* 

We  have  here  land  abandoned  and  the  cultivator  ruined  for 
want  of  a  market  for  food,  and  wages  falling  for  want  of  a  market 
for  labour;  and  yet  these  poor  people  are  paying  for  English  food 
and  English  labour  employed  in  converting  into  cloth  the  cotton 
produced  alongside  of  the  food — and  they  are  ruined  because  they 
have  so  many  middlemen  to  pay  that  the  producer  of  cotton  can 
obtain  little  food,  and  the  producer  of  food  can  scarcely  pay  his 
taxes,  and  has  nothing  to  give  for  cloth.  Every  thing  tends, 
therefore,  toward  barbarism,  and,  as  in  the  olden  time  of  England  and 
of  Europe  generally,  famines  become  steadily  more  numerous  and 
more  severe,  as  is  here  shown  : — 

"  Some  of  the  finest  tracts  of  land  have  been  forsaken,  and  given  up 
to  the  untamed  beasts  of  the  jungle.  The  motives  to  industry  have 
been  destroved.  The  soil  seems  to  lie  under  a  curse.  Instead  of  yield 
ing  abundance  for  the  wants  of  its  own  population,  and  the  inhabitants 
of  other  regions,  it  does  not  keep  in  existence  its  own  children.  It  be 
comes  the  burving-place  of  millions,  who  die  upon  its  bosom  crying  for 
bread.  In  proof  of  this,  turn  your  eyes  backward  upon  the  scenes  of 
the  past  year.  Go  with  me  into  the  north-western  provinces  of  the 
Bengal  presidency,  and  I  will  show  you  the  bleaching  skeletons  of  five 
hundred  thousand  human  beings,  who  perished  of  hunger  in  the  space 
of  a  few  short  months.  Yes,  died  of  hunger  in  what  has  been  justly 
called  the  granary  of  the  world.  Bear  with  me,  if  I  speak  of  the 
scenes  which  were  exhibited  during  the  prevalence  of  this  famine. 
The  air  for  miles  was  poisoned  by  the  effluvia  emitted  from  the  putre 
fying  bodies  of  the  dead.  The  rivers  were  choked  with  the  corpses 
thrown  into  their  channels.  Mothers  cast  their  little  ones  beneath  the 
rolling  waves,  because  they  would  not  see  them  draw  their  last  gasp 
and  feel  them  stiffen  in  their  arms.  The  English  in  the  city  were  pre 
vented  from  taking  their  customary  evening  drives.  Jackalls  and  vui- 


*  Chapman,  97. 
13* 


150  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

tures  approached,  and  fastened  upon  the  bodies  of  men,  women,  and 
children,  before  life  was  extinct.  Madness,  disease,  despair  stalked 
abroad,  and  no  human  power  present  to  arrest  their  progress.  It  was 
the  carnival  of  death!  And  this  occurred  in  British  India — in  the 
reign  of  Victoria  the  First !  Nor  was  the  event  extraordinary  and  un 
foreseen.  Far  from  it:  1835-36  witnessed  a  famine  in  the  northern 
provinces:  1833  beheld  one  to  the  eastward:  1822-23  saw  one  in  the 
Deccan.  They  have  continued  to  increase  in  frequency  and  extent 
under  our  sway  for  more  than  half  a  century."* 

The  famine  of  1838  is  thus  described  by  Mr.  George  Thompson, 
late  M.  P.,  on  the  testimony  of  a  gentleman  of  high  respectability  : 

"  The  poorer  houses  were  entirely  unroofed,  the  thatches  having  been 
given  to  feed  the  cattle,  which  had  nevertheless  died ;  so  that  cattle  had 
disappeared  altogether  from  the  land.  He  says  that  a  few  attenuated 
beings,  more  like  skeletons  than  human  creatures,  were  seen  hovering 
about  among  the  graves  of  those  who  had  been  snatched  away  by 
the  famine  ;  that  desertion  was  everywhere  visible,  and  that  the  silence 
of  death  reigned.  In  one  of  the  villages,  he  says,  an  old  man  from 
whom  they  had  bought  a  goat  during  their  former  visit,  in  1833,  was 
the  only  survivor  of  the  whole  community  except  his  brother's  son, 
whom  he  was  cherishing  and  endeavouring  to  keep  alive,  and  these  two 
had  subsisted  altogether  upon  the  eleemosynary  bounty  of  travellers. 
The  courier  of  Lord  Auckland  had  informed  this  gentleman  that  when 
the  governor-general  passed  through  that  part  of  the  country  the  roads 
were  lined  on  either  side  with  heaps  of  dead  bodies,  and  that  they  had 
not  unfrequently  to  remove  those  masses  of  unburied  human  beings, 
ere  the  governor-general  could  proceed  onward  with  his  suite;  and 
that  every  day  from  2000  to  3000  famishing  wretches  surrounded  and 
followed  the  carriages,  to  whom  he  dealt  out  a  scanty  meal ;  and  on 
one  occasion  the  horse  of  the  courier  took  fright,  and  on  the  cause 
being  ascertained — what  was  it?  It  was  found  to  be  the  lifeless  body 
of  a  man  who  had  died  with  his  hand  in  his  mouth,  from  which  he  had 
already  devoured  the  fingers."f 

The  more  severe  the  pressure  on  the  poor  ryot,  the  greater 
is  the  power  of  the  few  who  are  always  ready  to  profit  by  the  losses 
of  their  neighbours.  These  poor  people  are  obliged  to  borrow 
money  on  their  growing  crops,  the  prices  of  which  are  regulated  by 
the  will  of  the  lender  rather  than  by  the  standard  of  the  market,  and 
the  rate  of  interest  which  the  cultivators  pay  for  these  loans  is 
often  not  less  than  40  or  50  per  cent. 

A  recent  traveller  says  of  the  unfortunate  cultivator — 

"  Always  oppressed,  ever  in  poverty,  the  ryot  is  compelled  to  seek 
the  aid  of  the  mahajun,  or  native  money-lender.  This  will  frequently 

#  Thompson's  Lectures  on  ludia,  57  f  Ibid.  185. 


DOMESTIC    AND   FOREIGN'.  151 

bo  the  talukdhar,  or  sub-renter,  who  exacts  from  the  needy  borrower 
•whatever  interest  he  thinks  the  unfortunate  may  be  able  to  pay  him, 
often  dt  the  rate  of  one  per  cent,  per  week.  The  accounts  of  these 
loans  are  kept  by  the  mahajuns,  who,  aware  of  the  deep  ignorance  of 
their  clients,  falsify  their  books,  without  fear  of  detection.  In  this  way, 
no  matter  how  favourable  the  season,  how  large  the  crop,  the  grasping 
mahajun  is  sure  to  make  it  appear  that  the  whole  is  due  to  him  ;  for  he 
takes  it  at  his  own  value.  So  far  from  Mr.  Burke  having  overstated 
the  case  of  the  oppression  of  the  ryots,  on  the  trial  of  AVarren  Hast 
ings,  when  he  said  that  the  tax-gatherer  took  from  them  eighteen 
shillings  in  every  pound,  he  was  really  within  the  mark.  At  the  con 
clusion  of  each  crop-time,  the  grower  of  rice  or  cotton  is  made  to  appear 
a  debtor  to  his  superior,  who  thereupon — provided  the  ryot  appears 
able  to  toil  on  for  another  season — advances  more  seed  for  sowing,  and 
a  little  more  rice  to  keep  the  labourer  and  his  family  from  absolute 
starvation.  But  should  there  be  any  doubt  as  to  the  health  and 
strength  of  the  tenant-labourer,  he  is  mercilessly  turned  from  his  land 
and  his  mud  hut,  and  left  to  die  on  the  highway." 

This  is  slavery,  and  under  such  a  system  how  could  the  wretched 
people  be  other  than  slaves  ?  The  men  have  no  market  for  their 
labour,  and  the  women  and  children  must  remain  idle  or  work  in 
the  field,  as  did,  and  do,  the  women  of  Jamaica;  and  all  because 
they  are  compelled  everywhere  to  exhaust  the  soil  in  raising  crops 
to  be  sent  to  a  distance  to  be  consumed,  and  finally  to  abandon  the 
land,  even  where  they  do  not  perish  of  famine.  Mr.  Chapman  in 
forms  us  that — 

"Even  in  the  valley  of  the  Ganges,  where  the  population  is  in  some 
districts  from  600  to  800  to  the  square  mile,  one-third  of  the  cultivable 
lands  are  not  cultivated;  and  in  the  Deccan,  from  which  we  must 
chiefly  look  for  increased  supplies  of  cotton,  the  population,  amounting 
to  about  100  to  the  square  mile,  is  maintained  by  light  crops,  grown 
on  little  more  than  half  the  cultivable  land."* 

Elsewhere  lie  tells  us  that  of  the  cultivable  surface  of  all  India 
one-half  is  waste.-\  Bishop  Heber  informs  us  of  the  "impenetrable 
jungle"  that  now  surrounds  the  once  great  manufacturing  city  of 
Dacca;  and  the  Bombay  Times  reminds  its  English  readers  of  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres  of  rich  land  that  are  lying  waste, 
and  that  might  be  made  to  produce  cotton. 

When  population  and  wealth  diminish  it  is  always  the  rich  soils 
that  are  first  abandoned,  as  is  shown  in  the  Campagna  of  Rome, 

*  Chapman,  22.  f  Ibid,  25. 


152  THE    SLAVE   TKADE, 

in  the  valley  of  Mexico,  and  in  the  deltas  of  the  Ganges  and  the 
Nile.  Without  association  they  could  never  have  been  brought 
into  cultivation,  and  with  the  disappearance  of  the  power  to  asso 
ciate  they  are  of  necessity  allowed  to  relapse  into  their  original 
condition.  Driven  back  to  the  poor  soils  and  forced  to  send  abroad 
the  product,  their  wretched  cultivator  becomes  poorer  from  day  to 
day,  and  the  less  he  obtains  the  more  he  becomes  a  slave  to  the 
caprices  of  his  landlord,  and  the  more  is  he  thrown  upon  the  mercy 
of  the  money-lender,  who  lends  on  good  security  at  three  per  cent, 
per  month,  but  from  him  must  have  fifty  or  a  hundred  per  cent,  for 
a  loan  until  harvest.  That  under  such  circumstances  the  wages  of 
labour  should  be  very  low,  even  where  the  wretched  people  are  em 
ployed,  must  be  a  matter  of  course.  In  some  places  the  labourer  has 
two  and  in  others  three  rupees,  or  less  than  a  dollar  and  a  half,  per 
month.  The  officers  employed  on  the  great  zemindary  estates  have 
from  three- to  four  rupees,  and  that  this  is  a  high  salary,  is  proved 
by  the  fact  that  the  police  receive  but  48  rupees  ($23)  per  annum, 
out  of  which  they  feed  and  clothe  themselves!  Such  are  the  re 
wards  of  labour  in  a  country  possessing  every  conceivable  means  of 
amassing  wealth,  and  they  become  less  from  year  to  year.  "  It 
could  not  be  too  universally  known,"  said  Mr.  Bright  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  two  years  since, 

"That  the  cultivators  of  the  soil  were  in  a  very  unsatisfactory  con 
dition;  that  they  were,  in  truth,  in  a  condition  of  extreme  and  almost 
universal  poverty.  All  testimony  concurred  upon  that  point.  He 
would  call  the  attention  of  the  house  to  the  statement  of  a  celebrated 
native  of  India,  the  Rajah  Rammohun  Roy,  who  about  twenty  years  ago 
published  a  pamphlet  in  London,  in  which  he  pointed  out  the  ruinous 
effects  of  the  /emindary  system,  and  the  oppression  experienced  by  the 
ryots  in  the  presidencies  both  of  Bombay  and  Madras.  After  describing 
the  state  of  matters  generally,  he  added,  'Such  was  the  melancholy 
condition  of  the  agricultural  labourers,  that  it  always  gave  him  the 
greatest  pain  to  allude  to  it.'  Three  years  afterward,  Mr.  Shore,  who 
was  a  judge  in  India,  published  a  work  which  was  considered  as  a 
standard  work  till  now,  and  he  stated  that  '  the  British  Government 
was  not  regarded  in  a  favourable  light  by  the  native  population  of 
India,' — that  a  system  of  taxation  and  extortion  was  carried  on  'un 
paralleled  in  the  annals  of  any  country.'  Then  they  had  the  authority 
of  an  American  planter,  Mr.  Finnie,  who  was  in  India  in  1840,  and 
who  spoke  of  the  deplorable  condition  of  the  cultivators  of  the  soil,  and 
stated  that  if  the  Americans  were  similarly  treated,  they  would  become 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  153 

as  little  progressive  as  the  native  Indians.  He  might  next  quote  the 
accounts  given  by  Mr.  Marriott  in  1838,  a  gentleman  who  was  for  thirty 
years  engaged  in  the  collection  of  the  revenue  in  India,  and  who  stated 
that  '  the  condition  of  the  cultivators  was  greatly  depressed,,  and  that 
he  believed  it  was  still  declining.'  There  was  the  evidence  of  a  native 
of  India  to  which  he  might  refer  on  this  subject.  It  was  that  of  a 
gentleman,  a  native  of  Delhi,  who  was  in  England  in  the  year  1849, 
and  he  could  appeal  to  the  right  hon.  baronet  the  member  for  Tarn- 
worth  in  favour  of  the  credibility  of  that  gentleman.  He  never  met 
with  a  man  of  a  more  dignified  character,  or  one  apparently  of  greater 
intelligence,  and  there  were  few  who  spoke  the  English  language  with 
greater  purity  and  perfection.  That  gentleman  had  written  a  pam 
phlet,  in  which  he  stated  that  throughout  his  whole  line  of  march  from 
Bombay  he  found  the  Nizam's  territories  better  cultivated,  and  the 
ryots  in  a  better  state  of  circumstances,  than  were  the  Company's  terri 
tories,  or  the  people  residing  within  them,  who  were  plunged  in  a  state 
of  the  greatest  poverty ;  and  he  concluded  his  short,  but  comparatively 
full,  notice  of  the  present  deplorable  state  of  India,  by  observing  that 
he  feared  thjs  was  but  the  prelude  of  many  more  such  descriptions  of 
the  different  portions  of  the  Company's  dominions  which  would  be  put 
forth  before  the  subject  would  attract  the  notice  of  those  whose  duty  it 
was  to  remove  the  evils  that  existed." 

We  have  here  confirmation  of  the  correctness  of  the  views  of 
Colonel  Sleeman,  that  the  condition  of  the  people  under  the  local 
governments  is  better  than  under  the  great  central  government. 
Heavily  as  they  are  taxed,  a  small  part  only  of  the  proceeds  of 
taxes  goes,  in  these  cases,  to  Calcutta  on  its  way  to  England, 
whereas,  of  the  enormous  salaries  paid  to  English  governors  and 
judges,  nearly  the  whole  must  go  abroad,  as  no  one  consents  to 
serve  for  a  few  years  in  India,  except  on  such  terms  as  will  enable 
him  to  accumulate  a  fortune  and  return  home  to  spend  it.  In 
further  confirmation  of  this  we  have  the  facts  so  fully  given  in  Mr. 
Campbell's  recent  work,  (Modern  India,  chap,  xi.,)  and  proving 
that  security  of  person  and  property  increases  as  we  puss  from  the 
old  possessions  of  the  Company,  and  toward  the  newly  acquired 
ones.  Crime  of  every  kind,  gang  robbery,  perjury,  and  forgery, 
abound  in  Bengal  and  Madras,  and  the  poverty  of  the  cultivator  is 
so  great  that  the  revenue  is  there  the  least,  and  is  collected  with  the 
greatest  difficulty — and  there,  too,  it  is  that  the  power  of  association 
has  been  most  effectually  destroyed.  Passing  thence  to  the  North 
western  provinces  more  recently  acquired,  person  and  property  be 
come  more  secure  and  the  revenue  increases;  but  when  we  reach 


154  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

the  Punjab,  which  until  now  has  been  subject  to  the  rule  of  Run- 
jeet  Singh  and  his  successors,  we  find  that,  tyrants  as  he  and  they 
have  been  represented,  the  people  have  there  been  left  in  the  ex 
ercise  of  self-government.  The  village  communities  and  the  beauti 
ful  system  of  association,  destroyed  in  Bengal,  there  remain  un 
touched.  Officers  of  all  kinds  are  there  more  responsible  for  the 
performance  of  their  duties  than  are  their  fellows  in  the  older  pro 
vinces,  and  property  and  person  are  more  secure  than  elsewhere  in 
India.  Gang  robbery  is  rare,  perjury  is  unfrequent,  and  Mr. 
Campbell  informs  us  that  a  solemn  oath  is  a astonishingly  binding." 
"The  longer  we  possess  a  province,"  he  continues,  "the  more  com 
mon  and  general  does  perjury  become;"  and  we  need  no  better  evi 
dence  than  is  thus  furnished  of  the  slavish  tendency  of  the  system. 
The  hill  tribes,  on  the  contrary,  are  remarkable  for  their  "  strict 
veracity,"  and  Colonel  Sleeman  expresses  the  belief  that  "there 
is  as  little  falsehood  spoken  in  the  village  communities,"  as  in  any 
part  of  the  world  with  an  equal  area  and  population.*  In  the  new 
provinces  the  people  read  and  write  with  facility,  and  they  are  men 
of  physical  and  moral  energy,  good  cultivators,  and  understand 
well  both  their  rights  and  their  duties }  whereas  from  the  older  ones 
education  has  disappeared,  and  with  it  all  power  to  associate 
together  for  any  good  purpose.  In  the  new  provinces,  commerce  is 
large,  as  is  shown  by  the  following  facts  representing  the  popula 
tion  and  post-office  revenue  of  Bengal,  the  N.  W.  Provinces,  and  the 
Punjab,  placed  in  the  order  of  their  acquisition  by  the  Company  : — 

Population.  Post-office  Revenue. 

Bengal 41,000,000  480,500  rupees. 

N.  W.  Provinces 24,000,000  978,000       " 

Punjab 8,000,000  178,000       " 

We  have  here  exhibited  the  remarkable  fact  that  in  the  country 
of  the  Sikhs,  so  long  represented  as  a  scene  of  grasping  tyranny, 
eight  millions  of  people  pay  as  much  postage  as  is  paid  by  fifteen 
millions  in  Bengal,  although  in  the  latter  is  Calcutta,  the  seat  of 
all  the  operations  of  a  great  centralized  government.  That  such 

*  Rambles  In  India,  vol.  ii.  109. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  155 

should  be  the  case  is  not  extraordinary,  for  the  power  advantageously 
to  employ  labour  diminishes  with  the  approach  to  the  centre  of 
British  power,  and  increases  as  we  recede  from  it.  Idleness  and 
drunkenness  go  hand  in  hand  with  each  other,  and  therefore  it  is  that 
Mr.  Campbell  finds  himself  obliged  to  state  that  "  intemperance  in 
creases  where  our  rule  and  system  have  been  long  established."^ 
We  see  thus  that  the  observations  of  both  Mr.  Campbell  and 
Colonel  Sleeman,  authors  of  the  most  recent  works  on  India,  confirm 
to  the  letter  the  earlier  statements  of  Captain  Westmacott,  an  extract 
from  which  is  here  given  : — 

"It  is  greatly  to  be  deplored,  that  in  places  the  longest  under  our 
rule,  there  is  the  largest  amount  of  depravity  and  crime.  My  travels 
in  India  have  fallen  little  short  of  8000  miles,  and  extended  to  nearly 
all  the  cities  of  importance  in  Northern,  Western,  and  Central  India. 
I  have  no  hesitation  in  affirming,  that  in  the  Hindoo  and  Mussulman 
cities,  removed  from  European  intercourse,  there  is  much  less  depra 
vity  than  either  in  Calcutta,  Madras,  or  Bombay,  where  Europeans 
chiefly  congregate." 

Calcutta  grows,  the  city  of  palaces,  but  poverty  and  wretched 
ness  grow  as  the  people  of  India  find  themselves  more  and  more 
compelled  to  resort  to  that  city  to  make  their  exchanges. 
Under  the  native  rule,  the  people  of  each  little  district  could  ex 
change  with  each  other  food  for  cotton  or  cotton  cloth,  paying  no 
body  for  the  privilege.  Now,  every  man  must  send  his  cotton  to 
Calcutta,  thence  to  go  to  England  with  the  rice  and  the  indigo  of 
his  neighbours,  before  he  and  they  can  exchange  food  for  cloth  or 
cotton — and  the  larger  the  quantity  they  send  the  greater  is  the 
tendency  to  decline  in  price.  With  every  extension  of  the  system 
there  is  increasing  inability  to  pay  the  taxes,  and  increasing  ne 
cessity  for  seeking  new  markets  in  which  to  sell  cloth  and  collect 
what  are  called  rents — and  the  more  wide  the  extension  of  the  sys 
tem  the  greater  is  the  difficulty  of  collecting  revenue  sufficient  for 
keeping  the  machine  of  government  in  motion.  This  difficulty 
it  was  that  drove  the  representatives  of  British  power  and  civil 
ization  into  becoming  traders  in  that  pernicious  drug,  opium. 

"  The  very  best  parts  of  India,"  as  we  are  told,f  "were  selected  for 

*  Modern  India,  394.  -j-  Thompson,  Lectures  on  India,  25. 


156  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

the  cultivation  of  the  poppy.  The  people  were  told  that  they  must 
either  cultivate  this  plant,  make  opium,  or  give  up  their  land.  If 
they  refused,  they  were  peremptorily  told  they  must  yield  or  quit. 
The  same  Company  that  forced  them  to  grow  opium  said,  You  must 
sell  the  opium  to  us  ;  and  to  them  it  was  sold,  and  they  gave  the  price 
they  pleased  to  put  upon  the  opium  thus  manufactured;  and  they 
then  sold  it  to  trading  speculators  at  Calcutta,  who  caused  it  to  be 
smuggled  up  the  Canton  River  to  an  island  called  Lintin,  and  tea  was 
received  in  exchange.  At  last,  however,  the  emperor  of  China,  after 
repeated  threats,  proceeded  to  execute  summary  justice ;  he  seized 
every  particle  of  opium  ;  put  under  bond  every  European  engaged  in 
the  merchandise  of  it ;  and  the  papers  of  to-day  (1839)  inform  us  that 
he  has  cut  off  the  China  trade,  root  and  branch." 

Unhappily,  however,  the  British  nation  deemed  it  expedient  to 
make  war  upon  the  poor  Chinese,  and  compel  them  to  pay  for  the 
opium  that  had  been  destroyed ;  and  now  the  profits  of  the  Indian 
government  from  poisoning  a  whole  people  have  risen  from  £1,500,- 
000,  at  the  date  of  the  above  extract,  to  the  enormous  sum  of  £3,500,- 
000,  or  $16,800,000,  and  the  market  is,  as  we  are  informed,  still 
extending  itself.*  That  the  reader  may  see  and  understand  how 

*  The  destruction  of  life  in  China  from  this  extension  of  the  market  for  the 
produce  of  India  is  stated  at  no  less  than  400,000  per  annum.  How  this  trade  is 
regarded  in  India  itself,  by  Christian  men,  may  be  seen  from  the  following  extract 
from  a  review,  recently  published  in  the  Bombay  Telegraph,  of  papers  in  regard 
to  it  published  in  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  in  which  the  review  is  now  re- 
published  : — 

"  That  a  professedly  Christian  government  should,  by  its  sole  authority  and  on 
its  sole  responsibility,  produce  a  drug  which  is  not  only  contraband,  but  essentially 
detrimental  to  the  best  interests  of  humanity;  that  it  should  annually  receive  into 
its  treasury  crores  of  rupees,  which,  if  they  cannot,  save  by  a  too  licentious  figure, 
be  termed  '  the  price  of  blood,'  yet  are  demonstrably  the  price  of  the  physical 
waste,  the  social  wretchedness,  and  moral  destruction  of  the  Chinese;  and  yet 
that  no  sustained  remonstrances  from  the  press,  secular  or  spiritual,  nor  from 
society,  should  issue  forth  against  the  unrighteous  system,  is  surely  an  astonish 
ing  fact  in  the  history  of  our  Christian  ethics. 

"An  American,  accustomed  to  receive  from  us  impassioned  arguments  against 
his  own  nation  on  account  of  slaver  if,  might  well  be  pardoned  were  he  to  say  to  w», 
tcith  somewhat  of  intemperate  feeling,  'Physician,  heal  thyself,'  and  to  expose 
with  bitterness  the  awful  inconsistency  of  Britain's  vehement  denunciation  of 
American  slavery,  while,  by  most  deadly  measures,  furthering  Chinese  demorali 
zation." 

The  review,  in  referring  to  the  waste  of  human  life,  closes  as  follows : — 
"What  unparalleled  destruction  !  The  immolations  of  an  Indian  Juggernauth 
dwindle  into  insignificance  before  it !  We  again  repeat,  nothing  but  slavery  is 
worthy  to  be  compared  for  its  horrors  with  this  monstrous  system  of  iniquity.  As 
we  write,  we  are  amazed  at  the  enormity  of  its  unprincipledness,  and  the  large 
extent  of  its  destructiveness.  Its  very  enormity  seems  in  some  measure  to  protect 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  157 

directly  the  government  is  concerned  in  this  effort  at  demoralizing 
and  enslaving  the  Chinese,  the  following  extract  is  given  : — 

"  For  the  supply  and  manufacture  of  government  opium  there  is  a 
separate  establishment.  There  are  two  great  opium  agencies  at  Gha- 
zeepore  and  Patna,for  the  Benares  and  Bahar  provinces.  Each  opium 
agent  has  several  deputies  in  different  districts,  and  a  native  establish 
ment.  They  enter  into  contracts  with  the  cultivators  for  the  supply 
of  opium  at  a  rate  fixed  to  meet  the  market.  The  land  revenue  authori 
ties  do  not  interfere,  except  to  prevent  cultivation  without  permission. 
Government  merely  bargains  with  the  cultivators  as  cultivators,  in  the 
same  way  as  a  private  merchant  would,  and  makes  advances  to  them  for 
the  cultivation.  The  only  difficulty  found  is  to  prevent  their  cultivating 
too  much,  as  the  rates  are  favourable,  government  a  sure  purchaser, 
and  the  cultivation  liked.  The  land  cultivated  is  measured,  and  pre 
caution  is  taken  that  the  produce  is  all  sold  to  government.  The  raw 
opium  thus  received  is  sent  to  the  head  agency,  where  it  is  manufac 
tured,  packed  in  chests,  and  sealed  with  the  Company's  seal/'* 

It  would  seem  to  the  author  of  this  paragraph  almost  a  matter 
of  rejoicing  that  the  Chinese  are  bound  to  continue  large  con 
sumers  of  the  drug.  "  The  failure  of  one  attempt  to  exclude  it 
has  shown,"  as  he  thinks —  / 

"  That  they  are  not  likely  to  effect  that  object ;  and  if  we  do  not  sup 
ply  them,  some  one  else  will ;  but  the  worst  of  it  is,  according  to  some 
people,  that  if  the  Chinese  only  legalized  the  cultivation  in  their  own 
country,  they  could  produce  it  much  cheaper,  and  our  market  would 
be  ruined.  Both  for  their  sakes  and  ours  we  must  hope  that  it  is  not 
so,  or  that  they  will  not  find  it  out."f 

Need  we  wonder,  when  gentlemen  find  pleasure  in  the  idea  of  an 
increasing  revenue  from  forcing  this  trade  in  despite  of  all  the  efforts 
of  the  more  civilized  Chinese  government,  that  t(  intemperance  in 
creases"  where  the  British  "rule  and  system  has  been  long  estab- 

it.  Were  it  a  minor  evil,  it  seems  as  though  one  might  grapple  with  it.  As  it  is, 
it  is  beyond  the  compass  of  our  grasp.  No  words  are  adequate  to  expose  its  evil, 
no  fires  of  indignant  feeling  are  fierce  enough  to  blast  it. 

"The  enormous  wealth  it  brings  into  our  coffers  is  its  only  justification,  the 
cheers  of  vice-enslaved  wretches  its  only  welcome  ;  the  curses  of  all  that  is  moral 
and  virtuous  in  an  empire  of  three  hundred  and  sixty  millions  attend  its  intro 
duction  ;  the  prayers  of  enlightened  Christians  deprecate  its  course ;  the  indig- 
natios  of  all  righteous  minds  is  its  only  '  God-speed.' 

"  It  takes  with  it  fire  and  sword,  slaughter  and  death  ;  it  leaves  behind  it  bank 
rupt  fortunes,  idiotized  minds,  broken  hearts,  and  ruined  souls.  Foe  to  all  the 
interests  of  humanity,  hostile  to  the  scanty  virtues  of  earth,  and  warring  against 
the  overflowing  benevolence  of  heaven,  may  we  soon  have  to  rejoice  over  its 
abolition !" 

*  Campbell,  390.  f  Ibid.  393. 

14 


158  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

lished  ?"  Assuredly  not.  Poor  governments  are,  as  we  everywhere 
see,  driven  to  encourage  gambling,  drunkenness,  and  other  immorali 
ties,  as  a  means  of  extracting  revenue  from  their  unfortunate  tax 
payers;  and  the  greater  the  revenue  thus  obtained,  the  poorer  become 
the  people  and  the  weaker  the  government.  Need  we  be  surprised 
that  that  of  India  should  be  reduced  to  become  manufacturer  and 
smuggler  of  opium,  when  the  people  are  forced  to  exhaust  the  land 
by  sending  away  its  raw  products,  and  when  the  restraints  upon  the 
mere  collection  of  domestic  salt  are  so  great  that  English  salt  now  finds 
a  market  in  India  ?  The  following  passage  on  this  subject  is  worthy 
of  the  perusal  of  those  who  desire  fully  to  understand  how  it  is  that 
the  people  of  that  country  are  restrained  in  the  application  of  their 
labour,  and  why  it  is  that  labour  is  so  badly  paid : — 

"  But  those  who  cry  out  in  England  against  the  monopoly,  and  their 
unjust  exclusion  from  the  salt  trade,  are  egregiously  mistaken.  As 
concerns  them  there  is  positively  no  monopoly,  but  the  most  absolute 
free  trade.  And,  more  than  this,  the  only  effect  of  the  present  mode 
of  manufacture  in  Bengal  is  to  give  them  a  market  which  they  would 
never  otherwise  have.  A  government  manufacture  of  salt  is  doubtless 
more  expensive  than  a  private  manufacture ;  but  the  result  of  this, 
and  of  the  equality  of  duty  on  bad  and  good  salt,  is,  that  fine  English 
salt  now  more  or  less  finds  a  market  in  India ;  whereas,  were  the  salt 
duty  and  all  government  interference  discontinued  to-morrow,  the 
cheap  Bengal  salt  would  be  sold  at  such  a  rate  that  not  a  pound  of 
English  or  any  other  foreign  salt  could  be  brought  into  the  market."* 

Nevertheless,  the  system  is  regarded  as  one  of  perfect  free  trade  ! 

Notwithstanding  all  these  efforts  at  maintaining  the  revenue, 
the  debt  has  increased  the  last  twelve  years  no  less  than 
£15,000,000,  or  seventy-two  millions  of  dollars;  and  yet  the  go 
vernment  is  absolute  proprietor  of  all  the  land  of  India,  and  enjoys 
so  large  a  portion  of  the  beneficial  interest  in  it,  that  private  pro 
perty  therein  is  reduced  to  a  sum  absolutely  insignificant,  as  will 
now  be  shown. 

The  gross  land  revenue  obtained  from  a  country  with  an  area  of 
491,448  square  miles,  or  above  three  hundred  millions  of  acres, 
is  151,786,743  rupees,  equal  to  fifteen  millions  of  pounds  sterling, 
or  seventy-two  millions  of  dollars. f  What  is  the  value  of  private 

*  Campbell,  384.  t  IWd.  377. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  159 

rights  of  property,  subject  to  the  payment  of  this  tax,  or  rent,  may 
be  judged  from  the  following  facts  : — In  1848-9  there  were  sold  for 
taxes,  in  that  portion  of  the  country  subject  to  the  permanent  set 
tlement,  1169  estates,  at  something  less  than  four  years'  purchase  of 
the  tax.  Further  south,  in  the  Madras  government,  where  the  ryot- 
war  settlement  is  in  full  operation,  the  land  "  would  be  sold"  for 
balances  of  rent,  but  "generally  it  is  not,"  as  we  are  told,  "and 
for  a  very  good  reason,  viz.  that  nobody  will  buy  it."  Private 
rights  in  land  being  there  of  no  value  whatsoever,  "the  collector 
of  Salem,"  as  Mr.  Campbell  informs  us — 

"  Naively  mentions  '  various  unauthorized  modes  of  stimulating  the 
tardy,'  rarely  resorted  to  by  heads  of  villages,  such  as  '  placing  him  in 
the  sun,  obliging  him  to  stand  on  one  leg,  or  to  sit  with  his  head  con 
fined  between  his  knees/  "* 

In  the  north-west  provinces,  "  the  settlement,"  as  our  author 
states,  "has  certainly  been  successful  in  giving  a  good  market 
value  to  landed  property;"  that  is,  it  sells  at  about  "four  years' 
purchase  on  the  revenue. "f  Still  further  north,  in  the  newly 
acquired  provinces,  we  find  great  industry,  "  every  thing  turned  to 
account,"  the  assessment,  to  which  the  Company  succeeded  on  the 
deposition  of  the  successors  of  Runjeet  Singh,  more  easy,  and  land 
more  valuable. J  The  value  of  land,  like  that  of  labour,  therefore 
increases  as  we  pass/rom  the  old  to  the  new  settlements,  being 
precisely  the  reverse  of  what  would  be  the  case  if  the  system 
tended  to  the  enfranchisement  and  elevation  of  the  people,  and 
precisely  what  should  be  looked  for  in  a  country  whose  inhabitants 
were  passing  from  freedom  toward  slavery. 

With  the  data  thus  obtained  we  may  now  ascertain,  with  per 
haps  some  approach  to  accuracy,  the  value  of  all  the  private  rights 
in  the  land  of  India.  In  no  case  does  that  subject  to  tax  appear 
to  be  worth  more  than  four  years'  purchase,  while  in  a  very  large 
portion  of  the  country  it  would  seem  to  be  worth  absolutely  nothing 
There  are,  however,  some  tax-free  lands  that  may  be  set  off  against 
those  held  under  the  ryotwar  settlement ;  and  it  is  therefore  pos- 

*  Campbell,  359.  f  Ibid.  332.  J  Ibid.  345. 


160  THE   SLAVE    TRADE, 

sible  that  the  whole  are  worth  four  years'  purchase,  which  would 
give  288  millions  of  dollars,  or  60  millions  of  pounds  sterling,  as 
the  value  of  all  the  rights  in  land  acquired  by  the  people  of  India 
by  all  the  labour  of  their  predecessors  and  themselves  in  the  many 
thousands  of  years  it  has  been  cultivated.  The  few  people  that 
have  occupied  the  little  and  sandy  State  of  New  Jersey,  with  its 
area  of  6900  square  miles,  have  acquired  rights  in  and  on  the  land 
that  are  valued,  subject  to  the  claims  of  government,  at  150  mil 
lions  of  dollars ;  and  the  few  that  have  occupied  the  little  island 
on  which  stands  the  city  of  New  York  have  acquired  rights  that 
would  sell  in  the  market  for  at  least  one-half  more  than  could  be 
obtained  for  all  the  proprietary  rights  to  land  in  India,  with  300 
millions  of  acres  and  96  millions  of  inhabitants  ! 

"  Under  the  native  princes,"  says  Mr.  Campbell,  "  India  was  a  pay 
ing  country."  Under  British  rule,  it  has  ceased  to  be  so,  because 
under  that  rule  all  power  of  combined  action  has  been  annihilated, 
or  is  in  train  to  be,  and  will  be  so,  by  aid  of  the  system  that  looks  to 
compelling  the  whole  people,  men,  women,  and  children,  to  work 
in  the  field,  producing  commodities  to  be  exported  in  their  raw 
state.  Every  act  of  association  is  an  act  of  trade,  and  whatever 
tends  to  destroy  association  must  destroy  trade.  The  internal 
commerce  of  India  declines  steadily,  and  the  external  amounts 
to  but  about  half  a  dollar  per  head,  and  no  effort  can  make  it  grow 
to  any  extent.  The  returns  of  last  year,  of  English  trade,  show  a 
diminution  as  compared  with  those  of  the  previous  one,  whereas 
with  almost  all  other  countries  there  is  a  large  increase.  Cuba 
exports  to  the  large  amount  of  twenty-five  dollars  per  head,  or 
almost  fifty  times  as  much  as  India ;  and  she  takes  of  cotton  goods 
from  England  four  times  as  much  per  head;  and  this  she  does 
because  it  is  a  part  of  the  policy  of  Spain  to  bring  about  combina 
tion  of  action,  and  to  enable  the  planter  and  the  artisan-to  work 
together,  whereas  the  policy  of  England  is  to  destroy  everywhere 
the  power  of  association,  and  thus  to  destroy  the  domestic  trade, 
upon  which  the  foreign  one  must  be  built.  Centralization  is  adverse 
to  trade,  and  to  the  freedom  of  man.  Spain  does  not  seek  to  esta 
blish  centralization.  Provided  she  receives  a  given  amount  of 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  161 

revenue,  she  is  content  to  permit  her  subjects  to  employ  them 
selves  at  raising  sugar  or  making  cloth,  as  they  please,  and  thus  to 
advance  in  civilization ;  and  by  this  very  course  it  is  that  she  is 
enabled  to  obtain  revenue.  How  centralization  operates  on  the 
people  and  the  revenue,  and  how  far  it  tends  to  promote  the  civil 
ization  or  the  freedom  of  man,  may  be  seen  on  a  perusal  of  the 
following  extract  from  a  recent  speech  of  Mr.  Anstey,  in  the  Bri 
tish  House  of  Commons  : — 

"  Such  was  the  financial  condition  of  India,  which  the  right  honour 
able  gentleman  believed  to  be  so  excellent.  The  intelligent  natives  of 
India,  however,  who  visited  this  country,  were  not  of  that  opinion. 
They  told  us  that  the  complaints  sent  from  India  to  this  country  were 
disregarded  here,  and  that  they  always  would  be  disregarded  as  long 
as  inquiry  into  them  was  imperial,  not  local.  They  stated  that  their 
condition  was  one  of  hopeless  misery,  and  that  it  had  been  so  ever 
since  they  came  under  our  rule.  The  result  was,  that  cholera  had 
become  the  normal  order  of  things  in  that  country,  and  in  India  it 
never  died  out.  It  appeared  from  the  reports  of  medical  officers  in  the 
army  that  it  did  not  attack  the  rich  and  well-fed  so  frequently  as  it 
attacked  the  poor,  and  that  among  them  it  had  made  the  most  fearful 
ravages.  The  first  authentic  account  they  had  of  the  appearance  of 
the  cholera  in  India  was  coincident  with  the  imposition  of  the  salt 
monopoly  by  Warren  Hastings  ;  and  by  a  just  retribution  it  had 
visited  their  own  shores,  showing  them  with  what  a  scourge  they  had 
so  long  afflicted  the  natives  of  India.  It  might  be  said  of  the  other 
taxes  that,  in  one  form  or  another,  they  affected  every  branch  of  indus 
try  and  every  necessary  of  life.  They  affected  even  the  tools  of  tradt, 
and  were  sometimes  equal  in  amount  to  the  sum  for  which  the  tool 
itself  could  be  purchased  in  the  market. 

"  When  on  a  former  occasion  he  had  mentioned  those  facts  before  a 
member  of  the  court  of  directors,  he  was  told  that  if  he  had  seen  the 
papers  in  the  archives,  he  would  perceive  that  an  alteration  had  taken 
place ;  but  he  found,  on  an  inspection  of  the  papers,  that  the  result  to 
the  purchaser  of  salt  is  almost  equal  to  what  it  had  been.  It  was  a  well 
known  fact  that  the  natives  dare  not  complain.  When  they  asked  for 
protection  from  the  laws,  they  were  treated  as  Juttee  Persaud  had 
been  treated  last  year — cases  were  fabricated  against  them,  and  they 
were  prosecuted  for  their  lives.  With  the  examples  before  them  of 
Nuncomar  and  Juttee  Persaud,  it  was  not  surprising  that  the  natives 
were  so  backward  in  bringing  to  justice  the  persons  whose  oppression? 
had  been  so  great." 

It  was  in  the  face  of  facts  like  those  here  presented,  and  othei 
similar  ones  presented  to  us  in  the  history  of  Jamaica,  that  in  a 
recent  despatch  Lord  Palmerston  thus  instructed  his  minister  at 
Madrid  :— 

14* 


162  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

"  I  have  to  instruct  your  lordship  to  observe  to  M.  de  Miraflores 
that  the  slaves  of  Cuba  form  a  large  portion,  and  by  no  means  an  un 
important  one,  of  the  population  of  Cuba ;  and  that  any  steps  taken 
to  provide  for  their  emancipation  would,  therefore,  as  far  as  the  black 
population  is  concerned,  be  quite  in  unison  with  the  recommendation 
made  by  her  Majesty's  government,  that  measures  should  be  adopted 
for  contenting  the  people  of  Cuba,  with  a  view  to  secure  the  connec 
tion  between  that  island  and  the  Spanish  crown ;  and  it  must  be  evi 
dent  that  if  the  negro  population  of  Cuba  were  rendered  free,  that  fact 
would  create  a  most  powerful  element  of  resistance  to  any  scheme  for 
annexing  Cuba  to  the  United  States,  where  slavery  still  exists. 

"•  With  regard  to  the  bearing  which  negro  emancipation  would  have 
on  the  interests  of  the  white  proprietors,  it  may  safely  be  affirmed  that 
free  labour  costs  less  than  slave  labour,  and  it  is  indisputable  that  a 
free  and  contented  peasantry  are  safer  neighbours  for  the  wealthy 
classes  above  them  than  ill-treated  and  resentful  slaves ;  and  that 
slaves  must,  from  the  nature  of  things,  be  more  or  less  ill-treated,  is  a 
truth  which  belongs  to  the  inherent  principles  of  human  nature,  and 
is  quite  as  inevitable  as  the  resentment,  however  suppressed  it  may  be, 
which  is  the  consequence  of  ill-treatment." 

The  negroes  of  Jamaica  have  never  been  permitted  to  apply  their 
spare  labour  even  to  the  refining  of  their  own  sugar,  nor  are  they 
no  at  this  day.  They  must  export  it  raw,  and  the  more  they  send 
the  lower  is  the  price  and  the  larger  the  proportion  taken  by  the 
government — but  the  poor  negro  is  ruined.  Spain,  on  the  contrary, 
permits  the  Cubans  to  engage  in  any  pursuits  they  may  deem  most 
likely  to  afford  them  a  return  to  labour  and  capital ;  and,  as  a  ne 
cessary  consequence  of  this,  towns  and  cities  grow  up,  capital  is 
attracted  to  the  land,  which  becomes  from  day  to  day  more  valu- 
ble,  labour  is  in  demand,  and  there  is  a  gradual,  though  slow,  im 
provement  of  condition.  The  power  to  resort  to  other  modes  of  em 
ployment  diminishes  the  necessity  for  exporting  sugar,  and  when 
exported  to  Spain,  the  producer  is  enabled  to  take  for  himself 
nearly  the  whole  price  paid  by  the  consumer,  the  government 
claiming  only  a  duty  of  fifteen  per  cent. 

The  Hindoo,  like  the  negro,  is  shut  out  from  the  workshop. 
If  he  attempts  to  convert  his  cotton  into  yarn,  his  spindle  is  taxed 
in  nearly  all  of  the  profit  it  can  yield  him.  If  he  attempts 
to  make  cloth,  his  loom  is  subjected  to  a  heavy  tax,  from  which 
that  of  his  wealthy  English  competitor  is  exempt.  His  iron  ore 
and  his  coal  must  remain  in  the  ground,  and  if  he  dares  to  apply 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  163 

his  labour  even  to  the  collection  of  the  salt  which  crystallizes 
before  his  door,  he  is  punished  by  fine  and  imprisonment.  He 
must  raise  sugar  to  be  transported  to  England,  there  to  be  ex 
changed,  perhaps,  for  English  salt.  For  the  sugar,  arrived  in  that 
country,  the  workman  pays  at  the  rate  perhaps  of  forty  shil 
lings  a  hundred,  of  which  the  government  claims  one-third,  the 
ship  owner,  the  merchant,  and  others,  another  third,  and  the  re 
maining  third  is  to  be  fought  for  by  the  agents  of  the  Company, 
anxious  for  revenue,  and  the  poor  ryot,  anxious  to  obtain  a  little 
salt  to  eat  with  his  rice,  and  as  much  of  his  neighbour's  cotton,  in 
the  form  of  English  cloth,  as  will  suffice  to  cover  his  loins. 

Under  the  Spanish  system  capital  increases,  and  labour  is  so 
valuable  that  slaves  still  continue  to  be  imported.  Under  the 
English  one,  labour  is  valueless,  and  men  sell  themselves  for  long 
years  of  slavery  at  the  sugar  culture  in  the  Mauritius,  in  Jamaica, 
and  in  Guiana.  In  all  countries  to  which  men  are  attracted,  civil 
ization  tends  upward;  but  in  all  those  from  which  men  fly,  it  tends 
downward. 

At  the  moment  this  despatch  was  being  written  by  Lord  Pal- 
merston,  Mr.  Campbell  was  writing  his  book,  in  which  it  is  every 
where  shown  that  the  tendency  of  India  toward  centralization  and 
absenteeism,  and  therefore  toward  exhaustion  and  slavery,  is  rapidly 
on  the  increase.  "  The  communication  with  India,"  as  he  says — 

"  Is  every  day  so  much  increased  and  facilitated  that  we  become 
more  and  more  entirely  free  from  native  influence,  and  the  disposition 
to  Hindooize,  which  at  first  certainly  showed  itself,  has  altogether  dis 
appeared.  The  English  in  India  have  now  become  as  English  as  in 
England. 

"While  this  state  of  things  has  great  advantages,  it  has  also  some 
disadvantage  in  the  want  of  local  knowledge,  and  of  permanency  in 
the  tenure  of  appointments  which  results.  As  there  has  been  a  con 
stant  succession  of  total  strangers  in  every  appointment,  it  follows  that 
the  government  must  be  entirely  carried  on  upon  general  principles, 
with  little  aid  from  local  knowledge  and  experience." — P.  202. 

The  tendency  toward  the  transfer  of  English  capital  to  India,  as 
he  informs  us,  retrogrades  instead  of  advancing,  and  this  is  pre 
cisely  what  we  might  expect  to  find  to  be  the  case.  Capital  never 
seeks  a  country  from  which  men  are  flying  as  they  now  fly  from. 


164  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

India.  The  English  houses  bring  none,  but  being  in  general 
mere  speculators,  they  borrow  largely  and  enter  into  large  opera 
tions,  and  when  the  bubble  bursts,  the  poor  Hindoo  suffers  in  the 
prostration  of  trade  and  decline  in  the  prices  of  cotton  and  sugar. 
"  The  consequence  is,"  as  Mr.  Campbell  says — 

"  That  European  speculation  has  retrograded.  Far  up  the  country, 
where  the  agents  of  the  old  houses  were  formerly  numerous  and  well 
supplied  with  money,  the  planters  are  now  few  and  needy,  and  gene 
rally  earn  but  a  precarious  subsistence  as  in  fact  the  servants  of 
native  capitalists."— P.  204. 

Iron,  by  aid  of  which  the  people  might  improve  their  processes 
of  cultivation  and  manufacture,  has  little  tendency  toward  India. 
The  average  export  of  it  to  that  country  in  1845  and  '46  was  but 
13,000  tons,  value  £160,000,  or  about  two-pence  worth  for  every 
five  of  the  population.  Efforts  are  now  being  made  for  the  con 
struction  of  railroads,  but  their  object  is  that  of  carrying  out  the 
system  of  centralization,  and  thus  still  further  destroying  the 
power  of  association,  because  they  look  to  the  annihilation  of  what 
still  remains  of  domestic  manufacture,  and  thus  cheapening  cotton. 
With  all  the  improvements  in  the  transportation  of  that  commodity, 
its  poor  cultivator  obtains  less  for  it  than  he  did  thirty  years  since, 
and  the  effect  of  further  improvement  can  be  none  other  than  that 
of  producing  a  still  further  reduction,  and  still  further  deteriora 
tion  of  the  condition  of  the  men  who  raise  food  and  cotton.  As  yet 
the  power  of  association  continues  in  the  Punjab,  but  it  is  proposed 
now  to  hold  there  great  fairs  for  the  sale  of  English  manufactures, 
and  the  day  cannot  be  far  distant  when  the  condition  of  the  people 
of  the  new  provinces  will  be  similar  to  that  of  those  of  the  old 
ones,  as  no  effort  will  be  spared  to  carry  out  the  system  which 
looks  to  driving  the  whole  people  to  agriculture,  and  thus  com 
pelling  them  to  exhaust  their  land.  It  is  needed,  says  Mr.  Chap 
man,  the  great  advocate  of  railways  in  India,  that  the  connection 
between  "  the  Indian  grower  and  English  spinner"  become  more 
intimate,  and  "  the  more  the  English  is  made  to  outweigh  the  native 
home  demand,  the  more  strongly  will  the  native  agriculturist  feel 
that  his  personal  success  depends  on  securing  and  improving  his 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  165 

British  connection"*  —  that  is,  the  more  the  natives  can  be  pre 
vented  from  combining  their  labours,  the  greater,  as  Mr.  Chapman 
thinks,  will  be  the  prosperity  of  India.  Centralization  has  im 
poverished,  and  to  a  considerable  extent  depopulated,  that  country, 
but  its  work  is  not  yet  done.  It  remains  yet  to  reduce  the  people 
of  the  Punjab,  of  Afghanistan  and  Burmah,  to  the  condition  of  the 
Bengalese. 

The  Burmese  war  is,  as  we  are  informed,  "connected  with  at 
least  certain  hopes  of  getting  across  to  China  through  the  Burmese 
territories,"")-  and  of  course  of  extending  the  trade  in  opium  through 
out  the  whole  of  interior  China;  and  the  revenue  from  that  source 
will  pay  the  cost  of  annexation.  It  is  by  aid  of  this  powerful 
narcotic,  probably,  that  "civilization"  is  about,  as  we  are  told, 
to  "  plant  her  standard  on  the  ruins  of  kingdoms  which  for  thou 
sands  of  years  have  been  smouldering  into  dust."  J 

We  are  often  told  of  "  the  dim  moral  perceptions  of  the  people 
of  India/'  and  as  many  of  those  who  will  read  this  volume  may 
be  disposed  to  think  that  the  cause  of  poverty  lies  in  some  de 
ficiencies  in  the  character  of  the  Hindoo,  it  may  not  be  im 
proper,  with  a  view  to  the  correction  of  that  opinion,  to  offer  a 
few  passages  from  the  very  interesting  work  of.  Colonel  Sleeman, 
who  furnishes  more  information  on  that  head  than  any  other  re 
cent  traveller  or  resident;  and  his  remarks  are  the  more  valuable 
because  of  being  the  fruit  of  many  years  of  observation  :  — 

"  Sir  Thomas  Munro  has  justly  observed,  '  I  do  not  exactly  know 
what  is  meant  by  civilizing  the  people  of  India.  In  the  theory  and 
practice  of  good  government  they  may  be  deficient  ;  but  if  a  good 
system  of  agriculture  —  if  unrivalled  manufactures  —  if  a  capacity  to 
produce  what  convenience  or  luxury  demands  —  if  the  establishment 
of  schools  for  reading  and  writing  —  if  the  general  practice  of  kind 
ness  and  hospitality  —  and  above  all,  if  a  scrupulous  respect  and  deli 
cacy  toward  the  female  sex  are  amongst  the  points  that  denote  a  civil 
ized  people  ;  then  the  Hindoos  are  not  inferior  in  civilization  to  the 
people  of  Europe/  —  Rambles,  vol.  i.  4. 

"  Our  tents  were  pitched  upon  a  green  sward  on  one  bank  of  a  small 
stream  running  into  the  Nerbudda  close  by,  while  the  multitude  occu- 


*  Chapman  on  the  Commerce  of  India,  88. 

j"  Lawson's  Merchants'  Magazine,  January,  1853,  53.  J  Ibid.  51. 


166  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

pied  the  other  bank.  At  night  all  the  tents  and  booths  are  illuminated, 
and  the  scene  is  hardly  less  animating  by  night  than  by  day  ;  but  what 
strikes  an  European  most  is  the  entire  absence  of  all  tumult  and  dis 
order  at  such  places.  He  not  only  sees  no  disturbance,  but  feels 
assured  that  there  will  be  none ;  and  leaves  his  wife  and  children  in 
the  midst  of  a  crowd  of  a  hundred  thousand  persons  all  strangers  to 
them,  and  all  speaking  a  language  and  following  a  religion  different 
from  theirs,  while  he  goes  off  the  whole  day,  hunting  and  shooting  in 
the  distant  jungles,  without  the  slightest  feeling  of  apprehension  for 
their  safety  or  comfort." — Ibid.  2. 

"  I  am  much  attached  to  the  agricultural  classes  of  India  generally, 
and  I  have  found  among  them  some  of  the  best  men  I  have  ever  known. 
The  peasantry  in  India  have  generally  very  good  manners,  and  are 
exceedingly  intelligent,  from  having  so  much  more  leisure,  and  unre 
served  and  easy  intercourse  with  those  above  them." — Ibid.  76. 

"  I  must  say,  that  I  have  never  either  seen  or  read  of  a  nobler  spirit 
than  seems  to  animate  all  classes  of  these  communities  in  India  on 
such  distressing  occasions." — Ibid.  197. 

"  There  is  no  part  of  the  world,  I  believe,  where  parents  are  so 
much  reverenced  by  their  sons  as  they  are  in  India  in  all  classes  of 
society."— Ibid.  330. 

"An  instance  of  deliberate  fraud  or  falsehood  among  native  mer 
chants  of  respectable  stations  in  society,  is  extremely  rare.  Among  the 
many  hundreds  of  bills  I  have  had  to  take  from  them  for  private  re 
mittances,  I  have  never  had  one  dishonoured,  or  the  payment  upon 
one  delayed  beyond  the  day  specified ;  nor  do  I  recollect  ever  hearing 
of  one  who  had.  They  are  so  careful  not  to  speculate  beyond  their 
means,  that  an  instance  of  failure  is  extremely  rare  among  them.  No 
one  ever  in  India  hears  of  families  reduced  to  ruin  or  distress  by  the 
failure  of  merchants  and  bankers ;  though  here,  as  in  all  other  coun 
tries  advanced  in  the  arts,  a  vast  number  of  families  subsist  upon  the 
interest  of  money  employed  by  them. 

"  There  is  no  class  of  men  more  interested  in  the  stability  of  our 
rule  in  India  than  this  of  the  respectable  merchants ;  nor  is  there  any 
upon  whom  the  welfare  of  our  government,  and  that  of  the  people,  more 
depend.  Frugal,  first,  upon  principle,  that  they  may  not  in  their  ex 
penditure  encroach  upon  their  capitals,  they  become  so  by  habit ;  and 
when  they  advance  in  life  they  lay  out  their  accumulated  wealth  in 
the  formation  of  those  works  which  shall  secure  for  them,  from  gene 
ration  to  generation,  the  blessings  of  the  people  of  the  towns  in  which 
they  have  resided,  and  those  of  the  country  around.  It  would  not  be 
too  much  to  say,  that  one-half  the  great  works  which  embellish  and 
enrich  the  face  of  India,  in  tanks,  groves,  wells,  temples,  &c.,  have  been 
formed  by  this  class  of  the  people  solely  with  the  view  of  securing  the 
blessings  of  mankind  by  contributing  to  their  happiness  in  solid  and 
permanent  works." — Ibid.  vol.  ii.  142. 

"In  the  year  1829,  while  I  held  the  civil  charge  of  the  district  of 
Jubbulpore,  in  this  valley  of  the  Nerbudda,  I  caused  an  estimate  to  be 
made  of  the  public  works  of  ornament  and  utility  it  contained.  The 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  167 

population  of  the  district  at  that  time  amounted  to  five  hundred  thou 
sand  souls,  distributed  among  four  thousand  and  fifty-three  occupied 
towns,  villages,  and  hamlets.  There  were  one  thousand  villages  more 
which  had  formerly  been  occupied,  but  were  then  deserted.  There 
were  two  thousand  two  hundred  and  eighty-eight  tanks,  two  hundred 
and  nine  bowlies,  or  large  wells,  with  flights  of  steps  extending  from  the 
top  down  to  the  water  when  in  its  lowest  stage ;  fifteen  hundred  and 
sixty  wells  lined  with  brick  and  stone,  cemented  writh  lime,  but  with 
out  stairs ;  three  hundred  and  sixty  Hindoo  temples,  and  twenty-two 
Mohammedan  mosques.  The  estimated  cost  of  these  works  in  grain  at 
the  present  price,  that  is  the  quantity  that  would  have  been  consumed, 
had  the  labour  been  paid  in  kind  at  the  present  ordinary  rate,  was 
eighty-six  lacks,  sixty-six  thousand  and  forty-three  rupees  (86,66,043,) 
£866^604  sterling. 

"  The  labourer  was  estimated  to  be  paid  at  the  rate  of  about  two- 
thirds  the  quantity  of  corn  he  would  get  in  England  if  paid  in  kind, 
and  corn  sells  here  at  about  one-third  the  price  it  fetches  in  average 
seasons  in  England.  In  Europe,  therefore,  these  works,  supposing 
the  labour  equally  efficient,  would  have  cost  at  least  four  times  the  sum 
here  estimated  ;  and  such  works  formed  by  private  individuals  for  the 
public  good,  without  any  view  whatever  to  return  in  profits,  indicates 
a  very  high  degree  of  public  spirit. 

"  The  whole  annual  rent  of  the  lands  of  this  district  amounts  to 
about  six  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  rupees  a  year,  (£65,000  sterling,) 
that  is,  five  hundred  thousand  demandable  by  the  government,  and 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  by  those  who  hold  the  lands  at  lease 
immediately  under  government,  over  and  above  what  may  be  con 
sidered  as  the  profits  of  their  stock  as  farmers.  These  works  must, 
therefore,  have  cost  about  thirteen  times  the  amount  of  the  annual  rent 
of  the  \vhole  of  the  lands  of  the  districts — or  the  whole  annual  rent  for 
above  thirteen  years !" — Ibid.  vol.  ii.  194. 

We  have  here  private  rights  in  land  amounting  to  150,000 
rupees,  in  a  country  abounding  in  coal  and  iron  ore,*  and  with  a 
population  of  half  a  million  of  people.  Estimating  the  private 
interest  at  ten  years'  purchase,  it  is  exactly  three  years'  purchase  of 
the  land-tax ;  and  it  follows  of  course,  that  the  government  takes 
every  year  one-fourth  of  the  whole  value  of  the  property, — at  which 
rate  the  little  State  of  New  Jersey,  with  its  half-million  of  inhabit 
ants,  would  pay  annually  above  thirty  millions  of  dollars  for  the  sup 
port  of  those  who  were  charged  with  the  administration  of  its  affairs ! 
Need  we  wonder  at  the  poverty  of  India  when  thus  taxed,  while 
deprived  of  all  power  even  to  manure  its  land  ? 

"  Three-fourths  of  the  recruits  for  our  Bengal  native  infantry  are 

*  See  page  140,  ante. 


168 

drawn  from  the  Rajpoot  peasantry  of  the  kingdom  of  Oude,  on  the  left 
bank  of  the  Ganges,  where  their  affections  have  been  linked  to  the 
goil  for  a  long  series  of  generations.  The  good  feelings  of  the  families 
from  which  they  are  drawn,  continue,  through  the  whole  period  of 
their  service,  to  exercise  a  salutary  influence  over  their  conduct  as 
men  and  as  soldiers.  Though  they  never  take  their  families  \fith 
them,  they  visit  them  on  furlough  every  two  or  "three  years,  and 
always  return  to  them  when  the  surgeon  considers  a  change  of  air 
necessary  to  their  recovery  from  sickness.  Their  family  circles  are 
always  present  to  their  imaginations ;  and  the  recollections  of  their 
last  visit,  the  hopes  of  the  next,  and  the  assurance  that  their  conduct 
as  men  and  as  soldiers  in  the  interval  will  be  reported  to  those  circles 
by  their  many  comrades,  who  are  annually  returning  on  furlough  to 
the  same  parts  of  the  country,  tend  to  produce  a  general  and  uniform 
propriety  of  conduct,  that  is  hardly  to  be  found  among  the  soldiers  of 
any  other  army  in  the  world,  and  which  seems  incomprehensible  to 
those  who  are  unacquainted  with  its  source, — veneration  for  parents 
cherished  through  life  and  a  never  impaired  love  of  home,  and  of  all 
the  dear  objects  by  which  it  is  constituted/' — Ibid.  vol.  ii.  415. 

Such  are  the  people  that  we  see  now  forced  to  abandon  a  land 
of  which  not  more  than  half  the  cultivable  part  is  in  cultivation — 
a  land  that  abounds  in  every  description  of  mineral  wealth — and 
to  sell  themselves  for  long  years  of  service,  apart  from  wives,  chil 
dren,  and  friends,  to  be  employed  in  the  most  unhealthful  of  all 
pursuits,  the  cultivation  of  sugar  in  the  Mauritius,  and  the  Sand 
wich  Islands,  and  among  the  swamps  of  British  Guiana,  and 
Jamaica,  and  for  a  reward  of  four  or  five  rupees  ($2  to  $2.50) 
per  month.  What  was  their  condition  in  the  Mauritius  is  thus 
shown  by  an  intelligent  and  honest  visitor  of  the  island  in  1838  : — 

"  After  the  passage  of  the  act  abolishing  slavery,  an  arrangement 
was  sanctioned  by  the  Colonial  Government,  for  the  introduction  of  a 
great  number  of  Indian  labourers  into  the  colony.  They  were  engaged 
at  five  rupees,  equal  to  ten  shillings,  a  month,  for  five  years,  with  also 
one  pound  of  rice,  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  dhall,  or  grain,  a  kind  of 
pulse,  and  one  ounce  of  butter,  or  ghee,  daily.  But  for  every  day 
they  were  absent  from  their  work  they  were  to  return  two  days  to 
their  masters,  who  retained  one  rupee  per  month,  to  pay  an  advance 
made  of  six  months'  wages,  and  to  defray  the  expense  of  their  passage. 
If  these  men  came  into  Port  Louis  to  complain  of  their  masters,  they 
were  lodged  in  the  Bagne  prison,  till  their  masters  were  summoned. 
The  masters  had  a  great  advantage  before  the  magistrates  over  their 
servants:  the  latter  being  foreigners,  but  few  of  them  could  speak 
French,  and  they  had  no  one  to  assist  them  in  pleading  their  cause. 
They  universally  represented  themselves  as  having  been  deceived  with 
respect  to  the  kind  of  labour  to  be  exacted  from  them.  But  perhaps 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  169 

the  greatest  evil  attendant  on  their  introduction  into  the  Mauritius 
was  the  small  proportion  of  females  imported  with  them,  only  about 
two  hundred  being  brought  with  upward  of  ten  thousand  men.  It 
was  evident  that  unless  the  system  of  employing  them  were  closely 
watched,  there  was  a  danger  that  it  might  ultimately  grow  into  another 
species  of  slavery."* 

We  see  thus  that  while  the  females  of  India  are  deprived  of  all 
power  to  employ  themselves  in  the  lighter  labour  of  manufacture, 
the  men  are  forced  to  emigrate,  leaving  behind  their  wives  and 
daughters,  to  support  themselves  as  best  they  may.  The  same 
author  furnishes  an  account  of  the  Indian  convicts  that  had  been 
transported  to  the  island,  as  follows  : — 

"  Among  the  Indian  convicts  working  on  the  road,  we  noticed  one 
wearing  chains ;  several  had  a  slight  single  ring  round  the  ankle. 
They  are  lodged  in  huts  with  flat  roofs,  or  in  other  inferior  dwellings, 
near  the  road.  There  are  about  seven  hundred  of  them  in  the  island. 
What  renders  them  peculiarly  objects  of  sympathy  is,  that  they  were 
sent  here  for  life,  and  no  hope  of  any  remission  of  sentence  is  held  out 
to  them  for  good  conduct.  Their' s  is  a  hopeless  bondage  ;  and  though 
it  is  said  by  some  that  they  are  not  hard  worked,  yet  they  are  gene 
rally,  perhaps  constantly,  breaking  stones  and  mending  the  road,  and 
in  a  tropical  sun.  There  are  among  them  persons  who  were  so  young 
when  transported  that,  in  their  offences,  they  could  only  be  looked  on 
as  the  dupes  of  those  that  were  older ;  and  many  of  them  bear  good 
characters."! 

At  the  date  to  which  these  passsages  refer  there  was  a  dread 
ful  famine  in  India ;  but,  "  during  the  prevalence  of  this  famine," 
as  we  are  told, — 

"  Rice  was  going  every  hour  out  of  the  country.  230,371  bags  of 
164  pounds  each — making  37,780,844  Ibs. — were  exported  from  Cal 
cutta.  Where  ?  To  the  Mauritius,  to  feed  the  kidnapped  Coolies. 

*  Backhouse's  Visit  to  the  Mauritius,  35. 

f  The  danger  of  interference,  even  with  the  best  intentions,  when  unaccompa 
nied  by  knowledge,  is  thus  shown  by  the  same  author,  in  speaking  of  Madagas 
car  : — 

"Dreadful  wars  are  waged  by  the  queen  against  other  parts  of  the  island,  in 
which  all  the  male  prisoners  above  a  certain  stature  are  put  to  death,  and  the 
rest  made,  slaves.  This  she  is  enabled  to  effect  by  means  of  the  standing  army 
which  her  predecessor  liadama  was  recommended  to  keep  by  the  British.  *  * 
How  lamentable  is  the  reflection  that  the  British  nation,  with  the  good  intention 
of  abolishing  the  slave  trade,  should  have  strengthened  despotic  authority  and 
made  way  for  all  its  oppressive  and  depopulating  results,  by  encouraging  the  arts 
of  war  instead  of  those  of  peace  !" — P.  24. 

15 


170 

Yes :  to  feed  the  men  who  had  been  stolen  from  the  banks  of  the 
Ganges  and  the  hills  adjacent,  and  dragged  from  their  native  shore, 
under  pretence  of  going  to  one  of  the  Company's  villages,  to  grow  in 
the  island  of  Mauritius  what  they  might  have  grown  in  abundance 
upon  their  own  fertile,  but  over-taxed  land.  The  total  amount  of  rice 
exported  from  Calcutta,  during  the  famine  in  1838,  was  151,923,696 
Ibs.,  besides  13,722,408  Ibs.  of  other  edible  grains,  which  would  have 
fed  and  kept  alive  all  those  who  perished  that  year.  Wives  might 
have  been  saved  to  their  husbands,  babes  to  their  mothers,  friends  to 
their  friends ;  villages  might  still  have  been  peopled ;  a  sterile  land 
might  have  been  restored  to  verdure.  Freshness  and  joy  and  the 
voices  of  gladness  might  have  been  there.  Now,  all  is  stillness,  and 
desolation,  and  death.  Yet  we  are  told  we  have  nothing  to  do  with 
India."* 

The  nation  that  exports  raw  produce  must  exhaust  its  land,  and 
then  it  must  export  its  men,  who  fly  from  famine,  leaving  the 
women  and  children  to  perish  behind  them. 

By  aid  of  continued  Coolie  immigration  the  export  of  sugar 
from  the  Mauritius  has  been  doubled  in  the  last  sixteen  years, 
having  risen  from  70  to  140  millions  of  pounds.  Sugar  is  there 
fore  very  cheap,  and  the  foreign  competition  is  thereby  driven 
from  the  British  market.  "Such  conquests/'  however,  says,  very 
truly,  the  London  Spectator — 

"Don't  always  bring  profit  to  the  conqueror;  nor  does  production 
itself  prove  prosperity.  Competition  for  the  possession  of  a  field  may 
be  carried  so  far  as  to  reduce  prices  below  prime  cost ;  and  it  is  clear 
from  the  notorious  facts  of  the  West  Indies — from  the  change  of  pro 
perty,  from  the  total  unproductiveness  of  much  property  still — that 
the  West  India  production  of  sugar  has  been  carried  on,  not  only  with 
out  replacing  capital,  but  with  a  constant  sinking  of  capital." 

The  "  free"  Coolie  and  the  "  free  negro"  of  Jamaica  have  been 
urged  to  competition  for  the  sale  of  sugar,  and  they  seem  likely  to 
perish  together;  but  compensation  for  this  is  found  in  the  fact  that — 

"Free-trade  has,  in  reducing  the  prices  of  commodities  for  home  con 
sumption,  enabled  the  labourer  to  devote  a  greater  share  of  his  income 
toward  purchasing  clothing  and  luxuries,  and  has  increased  the  home 
trade  to  an  enormous  extent."f 

What  effect  this  reduction  of  (( the  prices  of  commodities  foi 


*  Thompson's  Lectures  on  British  India,  187. 

|  Lawson's  Merchants'  Magazine,  January,  1853,  14. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  171 

home  consumption"  has  had  upon  the  poor  Coolie,  may  be  judged 
from  the  following  passage  : — 

"I  here  beheld,  for  the  first  time,  a  class  of  beings  of  whom  we  have 
heard  much,  and  for  whom  I  have  felt  considerable  interest.  I  refer 
to  the  Coolies  imported  by  the  British  government  to  take  the  place 
of  the  faineant  negroes,  when  the  apprenticeship  system  was  abolished. 
Those  that  I  saw  were  wandering  about  the  streets,  dressed  rather 
tastefully,  but  always  meanly,  and  usually  carrying  over  their  shoulder 
a  sort  of  cJiijfionier's  sack,  in  which  they  threw  whatever  refuse  stuff 
they  found  'in  the  streets  or  received  as  charity.  Their  figures  are 
generally  superb,  and  their  Eastern  costume,  to  which  they  adhere  as 
far  as  their  poverty  will  permit  of  any  clothing,  sets  off  their  lithe  and 
graceful  forms  to  great  advantage.  Their  faces  are  almost  uniformly 
of  the  finest  classic  mould,  and  illuminated  by  pairs  of  those  dark 
swimming  and  propitiatory  eyes,  which  exhaust  the  language  of  ten 
derness  and  passion  at  a  glance. 

"  But  they  are  the  most  inveterate  mendicants  on  the  island.  It  is 
said  that  those  brought  from  the  interior  of  India  are  faithful  and 
efficient  workmen,  while  those  from  Calcutta  and  its  vicinity  are  good 
for  nothing.  Those  that  were  prowling  about  the  streets  of  Spanish- 
town  and  Kingston,  I  presume,  were  of  the  latter  class,  for  there  is  not 
a  planter  on  the  island,  it  is  said,  from  whom  it  would  be  more  difficult 
to  get  any  work  than  from  one  of  these.  They  subsist  by  begging 
altogether:  they  are  not  vicious,  nor  intemperate,  nor  troublesome  par 
ticularly,  except  as.  beggars.  In  that  calling  they  have  a  pertinacity 
before  which  a  Northern  mendicant  would  grow  pale.  They  will  not 
be  denied.  They  will  stand  perfectly  still  and  look  through  a  window 
from  the  street  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  if  not  driven  away,  with  their 
imploring  eyes  fixed  upon  you,  like  a  stricken  deer,  without  saying  a 
word  or  moving  a  muscle.  They  act  as  if  it  were  no  disgrace  for  them 
to  beg,  as  if  the  least  indemnification  which  they  are  entitled  to  expect, 
for  the  outrage  perpetrated  upon  them  in  bringing  them  from  their 
distant  homes  to  this  strange  island,  is  a  daily  supply  of  their  few  and 
cheap  necessities,  as  they  call  for  them. 

"I  confess  that  their  begging  did  not  leave  upon  my  mind  the  im 
pression  produced  by  ordinary  mendicancy.  They  do  not  look  as  if 
they  ought  to  work.  I  never  saw  one  smile,  and  though  they  showed 
no  positive  suffering,  I  never  saw  one  look  happy.  Each  face  seemed 
to  be  constantly  telling  the  unhappy  story  of  their  woes,  and  like  frag 
ments  of  a  broken  mirror,  each  reflecting  in  all  its  hateful  proportions 
the  national  outrage  of  which  they  are  the  victims/'* 

The  slave  trade  has  taken  a  new  form,  the  mild  and  gentle 
Hindoo  having  taken  the  place  of  the  barbarous  and  fierce  African ; 
and  this  trade  is  likely  to  continue  so  long  as  it  shall  be  held  to 
be  the  chief  object  of  the  government  of  a  Christian  people  to 

*  Bigelow's  "Jamaica  in  1850,"  17. 


172  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

secure  to  its  people  cheap  cotton  and  sugar,  without  regard  to  the 
destruction  of  life  of  which  that  cheapness  is  the  cause.  The 
people  of  England  send  to  India  missionary  priests  and  bishops, 
but  they  obtain  few  converts ;  nor  can  it  ever  be  otherwise  under  a 
system  which  tends  to  destroy  the  power  of  association,  and  thus 
prevents  that  diversification  of  employments  that  is  indispensable 
to  the  improvement  of  physical,  moral,  intellectual,  or  political 
condition.  May  we  not  hope  that  at  no  very  distant  day  they 
will  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  such  association  is  as  neces 
sary  to  the  Hindoo  as  they  know  it  to  be  to  themselves,  and  that 
if  they  desire  success  in  their  attempts  to  bring  the  followers  of  Mo 
hammed,  or  of  Brahma,  to  an  appreciation  of  the  doctrines  of  Christ, 
they  must  show  that  their  practice  and  their  teachings  are  in  some 
degree  in  harmony  with  each  other  ?  When  that  day  shall  come 
they  will  be  seen  endeavouring  to  remedy  the  evil  they  have 
caused,  and  permitting  the  poor  Hindoo  to  obtain  establishments  in 
which  labour  may  be  combined  for  the  production  of  iron  and  of 
machinery,  by  aid  of  which  the  native  cotton  may  be  twisted  in  the 
neighbourhood  in  which  it  is  produced,  thus  enabling  the  now  un 
happy  cultivator  to  exchange  directly  with  his  food-producing 
neighbour,  relieved  from  the  necessity  for  sending  his  products  to 
a  distance,  to  be  brought  back  again  in  the  form  of  yarn  or  cloth, 
at  fifteen  or  twenty  times  the  price  at  which  he  sold  it  in  the  form 
of  cotton.  That  time  arrived,  they  will  appreciate  the  sound  good 
sense  contained  in  the  following  remarks  of  Colonel  Sleeman  : — 

"  If  we  had  any  great  establishment  of  this  sort  in  which  Christians 
could  find  employment,  and  the  means  of  religious  and  secular  in 
struction,  thousands  of  converts  would  soon  flock  to  them ;  and  they 
would  become  vast  sources  of  future  improvement  in  industry,  social 
comfort,  municipal  institutions,  and  religion.  What  chiefly  prevents 
the  spread  of  Christianity  in  India  is.  the  dread  of  exclusion  from  caste 
and  all  its  privileges  ;  and  the  utter  hopelessness  of  their  ever  finding 
any  respectable  circle  of  society  of  the  adopted  religion,  which  con 
verts,  or  would  be  converts  to  Christianity,  now  everywhere  feel. 
Form  such  circles  for  them — make  the  members  of  these  circles  happy 
in  the  exertion  of  honest  and  independent  industry — let  those  who  rise 
to  eminence  in  them  feel  that  they  are  considered  as  respectable  and 
as  important  in  the  social  system  as  the  servants  of  government,  and 
converts  will  flock  around  you  from  all  parts,  and  from  all  classes  of 
the  Hindoo  community.  *  *  *  I  am  persuaded  that  a  dozen  such 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  173 

establishments  as  that  of  Mr.  Thomas  Ashton,  of  Hyde,  as  described 
by  a  physician  of  Manchester,  and  noticed  in  Mr.  Baines's  admirable 
work  on  the  Cotton  Manufactures  of  Great  Britain,  (page  447,)  would 
do  more  in  the  way  of  conversion  among  the  people  of  India  than  has 
ever  yet  been  done  by  all  the  religious  establishments,  or  ever  will  be 
done  by  them  without  some  such  aid." — Vol.  ii.  164. 

That  there  is  a  steady  increase  in  the  tendency  toward  personal 
servitude,  or  slavery,  in  India,  no  one  can  doubt  who  will  study 
carefully  the  books  on  that  country ;  and  it  may  not  be  amiss  to 
inquire  on  whom  rests  the  responsibility  for  this  state  of  things. 
By  several  of  the  persons  that  have  been  quoted,  Messrs.  Thomp 
son,  Bright,  and  others,  it  is  charged  upon  the  Company ;  but  none 
that  read  the  works  of  Messrs.  Campbell  and  Sleeman  can  hesitate 
to  believe  that  the  direction  is  now  animated  by  a  serious  desire 
to  improve  the  condition  of  its  poor  subjects.  Unfortunately,  how 
ever,  the  Company  is  "nearly  in  the  condition  of  the  land-holders 
of  Jamaica,  and  is  itself  tending  toward  ruin,  because  its  subjects 
are  limited  to  agriculture,  and  because  they  receive  so  small  a  por 
tion  of  the  value  of  their  very  small  quantity  of  products.  Now, 
as  in  the  days  of  Joshua  Gee,  the  largest  portion  of  that  value  remains 
in  England,  whose  people  eat  cheap  sugar  while  its  producer  starves 
in  India.  Cheap  sugar  and  cheap  cotton  are  obtained  by  the  sacri 
fice  of  the  interests  of  a  great  nation ;  and  while  the  policy  of  Eng 
land  shall  continue  to  look  to  driving  the  women  and  children  of 
India  to  the  labours  of  the  field,  and  the  men  to  the  raising  of 
sugar  in  the  Mauritius,  the  soil  must  continue  to  grow  poorer,  the 
people  must  become  more  and  more  enslaved,  and  the  government 
must  find  itself  more  and  more  dependent  for  revenue  on  the  power 
to  poison  the  people  of  China ;  and  therefore  will  it  be  seen  that 
however  good  may  be  the  intentions  of  the  gentlemen  charged  with 
the  duties  of  government,  they  must  find  themselves  more  and 
more  compelled  to  grind  the  poor  ryot  in  the  hope  of  obtaining 
revenue. 


15* 


174  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

HOW   SLAVERY  £ROWS   IN   IRELAND   AND    SCOTLAND. 

THE  government  which  followed  the  completion  of  the  Revolu 
tion  of  1688,  pledged  itself  to  discountenance  the  woollen  manu 
facture  of  Ireland,  with  a  view  to  compel  the  export  of  raw  wool 
to  England,  whence  its  exportation  to  foreign  countries  was  pro 
hibited  ;  the  effect  of  which  was,  of  course,  to  enable  the  English 
manufacturer  to  purchase  it  at  his  own  price.  From  that  period 
forward  we  find  numerous  regulations  as  to  the  ports  from  which 
alone  woollen  yarn  or  cloth  might  go  to  England,  and  the  ports  of 
the  latter  through  which  it  might  come ;  while  no  effort  was  spared 
to  induce  the  people  of  Ireland  to  abandon  woollens  and  take  to 
flax.  Laws  were  passed  prohibiting  the  export  of  Irish  cloth  and 
glass  to  the  colonies.  By  other  laws  Irish  ships  were  deprived  of 
the  benefit  of  the  navigation  laws.  The  fisheries  were  closed 
against  them.  No  sugar  could  be  imported  from  any  place  but 
Great  Britain,  and  no  drawback  was  allowed  on  its  exportation  to 
Ireland ;  and  thus  was  the  latter  compelled  to  pay  a  tax  for  the 
support  of  the  British  government,  while  maintaining  its  own. 
All  other  colonial  produce  was  required  to  be  carried  first  to  Eng* 
land,  after  which  it  might  be  shipped  to  Ireland;  and  as  Irish 
shipping  was  excluded  from  the  advantages  of  the  navigation  laws, 
it  followed  that  the  voyage  of  importation  was  to  be  made  in  British 
ships,  manned  by  British  seamen,  and  owned  by  British  merchants, 
who  were  thus  authorized  to  tax  the  people  of  Ireland  for  doing 
their  work,  while  a  large  portion  of  the  Irish  people  were  them 
selves  unemployed. 

While  thus  prohibiting  them  from  applying  themselves  to  manu 
factures  or  trade,  every  inducement  was  held  out  to  them  to  confine 
themselves  to  the  production  of  commodities  required  by  the  English 
manufacturers,  and  wool,  hemp,  and  flax  were  admitted  into  Eng- 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  175 

land  free  of  duty.  We  see  thus  that  the  system  of  that  day  in 
reference  to  Ireland  looked  to  limiting  the  people  of  that  country, 
as  it  limited  the  slaves  of  Jamaica,  and  now  limits  the  people  of 
Hindostan,  to  agriculture  alone,  and  thus  depriving  the  men,  the 
women,  and  the  children  of  all  employment  except  the  labour  of  the 
field,  and  of  all  opportunity  for  intellectual  ^improvement,  such  as 
elsewhere  results  from  that  association  which  necessarily  accompa 
nies  improvement  in  the  mechanic  arts. 

During  our  war  of  the  Revolution,  freedom  of  trade  was  claimed 
for  Ireland ;  and  as  the  demand  was  made  at  a  time  when  a  large 
portion  of  her  people  were  under  arms  as  volunteers,  the  mer 
chants  and  manufacturers  of  England,  who  had  so  long  acted  as 
middlemen  for  the  people  of  the  sister  kingdom,  found  themselves 
obliged  to  submit  to  the  removal  of  some  of  the  restrictions  under 
which  the  latter  had  so  long  remained.  Step  by  step  changes  were 
made,  until  at  length,  in  1783,  Ireland  was  declared  independent, 
shortly  after  which  duties  were  imposed  on  various  articles  of 
foreign  manufacture,  avowedly  with  the  intention  of  enabling  her 
people  to  employ  some  of  their  surplus  labour  in  converting  her 
own  food  and  wool,  and  the  cotton  wool  of  other  countries,  into 
cloth.  Thenceforward  manufactures  and  trade  made  considerable 
progress,  and  there  was  certainly  a  very  considerable  tendency 
toward  improvement.  Some  idea  of  the  condition  of  the  country 
at  that  time,  and  of  the  vast  and  lamentable  change  that  has  since 
taken  place,  may  be  obtained  from  the  consideration  of  a  few  facts 
connected  with  the  manufacture  of  books  in  the  closing  years  of 
the  last  century.  The  copyright  laws  not  extending  to  Ireland,  all 
books  published  in  England  might  there  be  reprinted,  and  accord 
ingly  we  find  that  all  the  principal  English  law  reports  of  the  day, 
very  many  of  the  earlier  ones,  and  many  of  the  best  treatises,  as 
well  as  the  principal  novels,  travels,  and  miscellaneous  works,  were 
republished  in  Dublin,  as  may  be  seen  by  an  examination  of  any 
of  our  old  libraries.  The  publication  of  such  books  implies,  of 
course,  a  considerable  demand  for  them,  and  for  Ireland  herself,  as 
the  sale  of  books  in  this  country  was  very  small  indeed,  and  there 
was  then  no  other  part  of  the  world  to  which  they  could  go.  More 


176 

books  were  probably  published  in  Ireland  in  that  day  by  a  single 
house  than  are  now  required  for  the  supply  of  the  whole  kingdom. 
With  1801,  however,  there  came  a  change.  By  the  Act  of 
Union  the  copyright  laws  of  England  were  extended  to  Ireland, 
and  at  once  the  large  and  growing  manufacture  of  books  was  pros 
trated.  The  patent  laws  were  also  extended  to  Ireland ;  and  as 
England  had  so  long  monopolized  the  manufacturing  machinery 
then  in  use,  it  was  clear  that  it  was  there  improvements  would  be 
made,  and  that  thenceforth  the  manufactures  of  Ireland  must  retro 
grade.  Manchester  had  the  home  market,  the  foreign  market, 
and,  to  no  small  extent,  that  of  Ireland  open  to  her;  while  the 
manufacturers  of  the  latter  were  forced  to  contend  for  existence, 
and  under  the  most  disadvantageous  circumstances,  on  their  own 
soil.  The  one  could  afford  to  purchase  expensive  machinery,  and 
to  adopt  whatever  improvements  might  be  made,  while  the  other 
could  not.  The  natural  consequence  was,  that  Irish  manufactures 
gradually  disappeared  as  the  Act  of  Union  came  into  effect.  By 
virtue  of  its  provisions,  the  duties  established  by  the  Irish  Parlia 
ment  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  the  farmers  of  Ireland  in  their 
efforts  to  bring  the  loom  and  the  anvil  into  close  proximity  with  the 
plough  and  the  harrow,  were  gradually  to  diminish,  and  free  trade  was 
to  be  fully  established ;  or,  in  other  words,  Manchester  and  Birming 
ham  were  to  have  a  monopoly  of  supplying  Ireland  with  cloth  and 
iron.  The  duty  on  English  woollens  was  to  continue  twenty  years. 
The  almost  prohibitory  duties  on  English  calicoes  and  muslins 
were  to  continue  until  1808 ;  after  which  they  were  to  be  gradually 
diminished,  until  in  1821  they  were  to  cease.  Those  on  cotton 
yarn  were  to  cease  in  1810.  The  effect  of  this  in  diminishing  the 
demand  for  Irish  labour,  is  seen  in  the  following  comparative  view 
of  manufactures  at  the  date  of  the  Union,  and  at  different  periods 
in  the  ensuing  forty  years,  here  given  : — 

Dublin,  1800, 


Kilkenny,  1800, 


Master  woollen  manufacturers  ... 
Hands  employed  

.      91 
.  4918 

1840, 

« 

12 

602 

30 

1834, 

5 

Hands  employed  

.    230 

u 

66 

Carpet  manufacturers  . 

.      13 

1841, 

1 

720 

none. 

Blanket  manufacturers  ... 

56 

1822, 

42 

DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  177 


Kilkenny,  1800,     Hands  employed  ......................  3000 

Dublin,  1800,          Silk-loom  weavers  at  work  .........  2500 

Balbriggan,  1799,  Calico  looms  at  work  .................  2500 

Wicklow,  1800,       Hand-looms  at  work  .................  1000 

Cork,  1800,  Braid  weavers  ..........................  1000 

Worsted  weavers  ......................  2000 

Hoosiers  .................................    300 

Wool-combers  .........................     700 

Cotton  weavers  ........................  2000 

Linen  check  weavers  ................    600 


1822,  925 

1840,  250 

1841,  226 
1841,  none. 
1834,  40 

90 

tt  28 

"  110 

"  220 

"  none. 


"  For  nearly  half  a  century  Ireland  has  had  perfectly  free  trade 
with  the  richest  country  in  the  world;  and  what/'  says  the  author 
of  a  recent  work  of  great  ability,  — 

"Has  that  free  trade  done  for  her?  She  has  even  now,"  he  con 
tinues,  "  no  employment  for  her  teeming  population  except  upon  the 
land.  She  ought  to  have  had,  and  might  easily  have  had,  other  and 
various  employments,  and  plenty  of  it.  Are  we  to  -believe,"  says  he, 
"  the  calumny  that  the  Irish  are  lazy  and  won't  work  ?  Is  Irish  human 
nature  different  from  other  human  nature  ?  Are  not  the  most  laborious 
of  all  labourers  in  London  and  New  York,  Irishmen  ?  Are  Irishmen 
inferior  in  understanding?  We  Englishmen  who  have  personally 
known  Irishmen  in  the  army,  at  the  bar,  and  in  the  church,  know  that 
there  is  no  better  head  than  a  disciplined  Irish  one.  But  in  all  these 
cases,  that  master  of  industry,  the  stomach,  has  been  well  satisfied. 
Let  an  Englishman  exchange  his  bread  and  beer,  and  beef  and  mut 
ton,  for  no  breakfast,  for  a  lukewarm  lumper  at  dinner,  and  no  supper. 
With  such  a  diet,  how  much  better  is  he  than  an  Irishman  —  a  Celt,  as 
he  calls  him  ?  No,  the  truth  is,  that  the  misery  of  Ireland  is  not  from 
the  human  nature  that  grows  there  —  it  is  from  England's  perverse 
legislation,  past  and  present."* 

Deprived  of  all  employment,  except  in  the  labour  of  agriculture, 
land  became,  of  course,  the  great  object  of  pursuit.  "  Land  is  life," 
had  said,  most  truly  and  emphatically,  Chief  Justice  Blackburn  ; 
and  the  people  had  now  before  them  the  choice  between  the  occu 
pation  of  land,  at  any  rent,  or  starvation.  The  lord  of  the  land 
was  thus  enabled  to  dictate  his  own  terms,  and  therefore  it  has 
been  that  we  have  heard  of  the  payment  of  five,  six,  eight,  and 
even  as  much  as  ten  pounds  per  acre.  "Enormous  rents,  low- 
wages,  farms  of  an  enormous  extent,  let  by  rapacious  and  indolent 
proprietors  to  monopolizing  land-jobbers,  to  be  relet  by  intermediate 
oppressors,  for  five  times  their  value,  among  the  wretched  starvers 

*  Sophisms  of  Free  Trade,  by  J.  Barnard  Byles,  Esq. 


178  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

on  potatoes  and  water,"  led  to  a  constant  succession  of  outrages, 
followed  by  Insurrection  Acts,  Arms  Acts,  and  Coercion  Acts, 
when  the  real  remedy  was  to  be  found  in  the  adoption  of  a  system 
that  would  emancipate  the  country  from  the  tyranny  of  the  spindle 
and  the  loom,  and  permit  the  labour  of  Ireland  to  find  employment 
at  home. 

That  employment  could  not  be  had.  With  the  suppression  of 
Irish  manufactures  the  demand  for  labour  had  disappeared.  An 
English  traveller,  describing  the  state  of  Ireland  in  1834,  thirteen 
years  after  the  free-trade  provisions  of  the  Act  of  Union  had  come 
fully  into  operation,  furnishes  numerous  facts,  some  of  which  will 
now  be  given,  showing  that  the  people  were  compelled  to  remain 
idle,  although  willing  to  work  at  the  lowest  wages — such  wages  as 
could  not  by  any  possibility  enable  them  to  do  more  than  merely 
sustain  life,  and  perhaps  not  even  that. 

CASIIEL. — "Wages  here  only  eiglitpence  a  day,  and  numbers  altoge 
ther  without  employment." 

CAHIR. — "I  noticed,  on  Sunday,  on  coming  from  church,  the  streets 
crowded  with  labourers,  with  spades  and  other  implements  in  their 
hands,  standing  to  be  hired;  and  I  ascertained  that  any  number  of 
these  men  might  have  been  engaged,  on  constant  employment,  at  six 
pence  per  day  without  diet." 

WICKLOW. — "  The  husband  of  this  woman  was  a  labourer,  at  sixpence 
a  day,  eighty  of  which  sixpences — that  is,  eighty  days'  labour — were 
absorbed  in  the  rent  of  the  cabin."  "  In  another  cabin  was  a  decently 
dressed  woman  with  five  children,  and  her  husband  was  also  a  labourer 
at  sixpence  a  day.  The  pig  had  been  taken  for  rent  a  few  days  before." 
"I  found  some  labourers  receiving  only  fourpence per  day." 

KILKENNY. — "Upward  of  2000  persons  totally  without  employ 
ment."  "I  visited  the  factories  that  used  to  support  200  men  with 
their  families,  and  how  many  men  did  I  find  at  work  ?  ONE  MAN  !  In 
place  of  finding  men  occupied,  I  saw  them  in  scores,  like  spectres, 
walking  about,  and  lying  about  the  mill.  I  saw  immense  piles  of  goods 
completed,  but  for  which  there  was  no  sale.  I  saw  heaps  of  blankets, 
and  I  saw  every  loom  idle.  As  for  the  carpets  which  had  excited  the 
jealousy  and  the  fears  of  Kidderminster,  not  one  had  been  made  for 
seven  months.  To  convey  an  idea  of  the  destitution  of  these  people,  I 
mention,  that  when  an  order  recently  ardved  for  the  manufacture  of 
as  many  blankets  for  the  police  as  would  have  kept  the  men  at  work 
for  a  few  days,  bonfires  were  lighted  about  the  country — not  bonfires 
to  communicate  insurrection,  but  to  evince  joy  that  a  few  starving  men 
were  about  to  earn  bread  to  support  their  families.  Nevertheless,  we 
are  told  that  Irishmen  will  not  work  at  home." 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  170 

CALLEN. — "In  this  town,  containing  between  four  and  five  thousand 
inhabitants,  at  least  one  thousand  are  without  regular  employment,  six 
or  seven  hundred  entirely  destitute,  and  there  are  upward  of  two  hun 
dred  mendicants  in  the  town — persons  incapable  of  work/' — Inylis's 
Ireland  in  1834. 

Such  was  the  picture  everywhere  presented  to  the  eye  of  this  in 
telligent  traveller.  Go  where  he  might,  he  found  hundreds  anxious 
for  employment,  yet  no  employment  could  be  had,  unless  they 
could  travel  to  England,  there  to  spend  weeks  in  travelling  round 
the  country  in  quest  of  days  of  employment,  the  wages  for  which 
might  enable  them  to  pay  their  rent  at  home.  "  The  Celt,"  says  the 
Times,  "is  the  hewer  of  wood  and  the  drawer  of  water  to  the  Saxon. 
The  great  works  of  this  country,"  it  continues,  "  depend  on  cheap 
labour."  The  labour  of  the  slave  is  always  low  in  price.  The  peo 
ple  of  Ireland  were  interdicted  all  employment  but  in  the  cultiva 
tion  of  the  land,  and  men,  women,  and  children  were  forced  to 
waste  more  labour  than  would  have  paid  twenty  times  over  for  all 
the  British  manufactures  they  could  purchase.  They  were  passing 
rapidly  toward  barbarism,  and  for  the  sole  reason  that  they  were 
denied  all  power  of  association  for  any  useful  purpose.  What  was 
the  impression  produced  by  their  appearance  on  the  mind  of 
foreigners  may  be  seen  by  the  following  extract  from  the  work  of  a 
well-known  and  highly  intelligent  German  traveller : — 

"  A  Russian  peasant,  no  doubt,  is  the  slave  of  a  harder  master,  but 
still  he  is  fed  and  housed  to  his  content,  and  no  trace  of  mendicancy 
is  to  be  seen  in  him.  The  Hungarians  are  certainly  not  among  the 
best-used  people  in  the  world;  still,  what  fine  wheaten  bread  and  what 
wine  has  even  the  humblest  among  them  for  his  daily  fare !  The  Hun 
garian  would  scarcely  believe  it,  if  he  were  to  be  told  there  was  a 
country  in  which  the  inhabitants  must  content  themselves  with  potatoes 
every  alternate  day  in  the  year. 

"  Servia  and  Bosnia  are  reckoned  among  the  most  wretched  coun 
tries  of  Europe,  and  certainly  the  appearance  of  one  of  their  villages 
has  little  that  is  attractive  about  it;  but  at  least  the  people,  if  badly 
housed,  are  well  clad.  We  look  not  for  much  luxury  or  comfort 
among  the  Tartars  of  the  Crimea ;  we  call  them  poor  and  barbarous, 
but,  good  heavens!  they  look  at  least  like  human  creatures.  They  have 
a  national  costume,  their  houses  are  habitable,  their  orchards  are 
carefully  tended,  and  their  gayly  harnessed  ponies  are  mostly  in  good 
condition.  An  Irishman  has  nothing  national  about  him  but  his  rags, 
— his  habitation  is  without  a  plan,  his  domestic  economy  without  ruK 
or  law.  We  have  beggars  and  paupers  among  us,  but  they  form  a^ 


180  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

least  an  exception ;  whereas,  in  Ireland,  beggary  or  abject  poverty  is 
the  prevailing  rule.  The  nation  is  one  of  beggars,  and  they  who  are 
above  beggary  seem  to  form  the  exception. 

"  The  African  negroes  go  naked,  but  then  they  have  a  tropical  sun 
to  warm  them.  The  Irish  are  little  removed  from  a  state  of  nakedness; 
and  their  climate,  though  not  cold,  is  cool,  and  extremely  humid.*  *  * 

"There  are  nations  of  slaves,  but  they  have,  by  long  custom,  been 
made  unconscious  of  the  yoke  of  slavery.  This  is  not  the  case  with 
the  Irish,  who  have  a  strong  feeling  of  liberty  within  them,  and  are 
fully  sensible  of  the  weight  of  the  yoke  they  have  to  bear.  They  are 
intelligent  enough  to  know  the  injustice  done  them  by  the  distorted 
laws  of  their  country ;  and  while  they  are  themselves  enduring  the  ex 
treme  of  poverty,  they  have  frequently  before  them,  in  the  manner  of 
life  of  their  English  landlords,  a  spectacle  of  the  most  refined  luxury 
that  human  ingenuity  ever  invented." — Kohl's  Travels  in  Ireland. 

It  might  be  thought,  however,  that  Ireland  was  deficient  in  the 
capital  required  for  obtaining  the  machinery  of  manufacture  to 
enable  her  people  to  maintain  competition  with  her  powerful  neigh 
bour.  We  know,  however,  that  previous  to  the  Union  she  had  that 
machinery;  and  from  the  date  of  that  arrangement,  so  fraudulently 
brought  about,  by  which  was  settled  conclusively  the  destruction 
of  Irish  manufactures,  the  annual  waste  of  labour  was  greater  than 
the  whole  amount  of  capital  then  employed  in  the  cotton  and 
woollen  manufactures  of  England.  From  that  date  the  people  of 
Ireland  were  thrown,  from  year  to  year,  more  into  the  hands  of 
middlemen,  who  accumulated  fortunes  that  they  would  not  invest 
in  the  improvement  of  land,  and  could  not,  under  the  system  which 
prostrated  manufactures,  invest  in  machinery  of  any  kind  calculated 
to  render  labour  productive;  and  all  their  accumulations  were  sent 
therefore  to  England  for  'investment.  An  official  documentrpub- 
lished  by  the  British  government  shows  that  the  transfers  of  British 
securities  from  England  to  Ireland,  that  is  to  say,  the  investment 
of  Irish  capital  in  England,  in  the  thirteen  years  following  the  final 
adoption  of  free  trade  in  1821,  amounted  to  as  many  millions  of 
pounds  sterling;  and  thus  was  Ireland  forced  to  contribute  cheap 
labour  and  cheap  capital  to  building  up  "  the  great  works  of  Bri 
tain.  "  Further,  it  was  provided  by  law  that  whenever  the  poor 
people  of  a  neighbourhood  contributed  to  a  saving  fund,  the  amount 
should  not  be  applied  in  any  manner  calculated  to  furnish  local 
employment,  but  should  be  transferred  for  investment  in  the 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  181 

British  funds.  The  landlords  fled  to  England,  and  their  rent 
followed  them.  The  middlemen  sent  their  capital  to  England. 
The  trader  or  the  labourer  that  could  accumulate  a  little  capital 
saw  it  sent  to  England;  and  he  was  then  compelled  to  follow  it. 
Such  is  the  history  of  the  origin  of  the  present  abandonment  of 
Ireland  by  its  inhabitants. 

The  form  in  which  rents,  profits,  and  savings,  as  well  as  taxes, 
went  to  England,  was  that  of  raw  products  of  the  soil,  to  be  con 
sumed  abroad,  yielding  nothing  to  be  returned  to  the  land,  which 
was  of  course  impoverished.  The  average  export  of  grain  in  the 
first  three  years  following  the  passage  of  the  Act  of  Union  was 
about  300,000  quarters,  but  as  the  domestic  market  gradually 
disappeared,  the  export  of  raw  produce  increased,  until  at  the 
close  of  twenty  years  it  exceeded  a  million  of  quarters ;  and  at  the 
date  of  Mr.  Inglis's  visit  it  had  reached  an  average  of  two  and  a 
half  millions,  or  22,500,000  of  our  bushels.  The  poor  people 
were,  in  fact,  selling  their  soil  to  pay  for  cotton  and  woollen  goods 
that  they  should  have  manufactured  themselves,  for  coal  which 
abounded  among  themselves,  for  iron,  all  the  materials  of  which 
existed  at  home  in  great  profusion,  and  for  a  small  quantity  of  tea, 
sugar,  and  other  foreign  commodities,  while  the  amount  required 
to  pay  rent  to  absentees,  and  interest  to  mortgagees,  was  estimated 
at  more  than  thirty  millions  of  dollars.  Here  was  a  drain  that 
no  nation  could  bear,  however  great  its  productive  power;  and  the 
whole  of  it  was  due  to  the  system  which  forbade  the  application 
of  labour,  talent,  or  capital  to  any  thing  but  agriculture,  and  thus 
forbade  advance  in  civilization.  The  inducements  to  remain  at 
home  steadily  diminished.  Those  who  could  live  without  labour 
found  that  society  had  changed ;  and  they  fled  to  England,  France, 
or  Italy.  Those  who  desired  to  work,  and  felt  that  they  were 
qualified  for  something  beyond  mere  manual  labour,  fled  to 
England  or  America;  and  thus  by  degrees  was  the  unfortunate 
country  depleted  of  every  thing  that  could  render  it  a  home  in 
which  to  remain,  while  those  who  could  not  fly  remained  to  be,  as 
the  Times  so  well  describes  it,  mere  "hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 

16 


182 

of  water  to  the  Saxon/'  happy  when  a  full-grown  man  could  find 
employment  at  sixpence  a  day,  and  that,  too,  without  food. 

"  Throughout  the  west  and  south  of  Ireland,"  said  an  English 
traveller  in  1842,  four  years  before  the  exhaustion  of  the  soil  had 
produced  disease  among  the  potatoes — 

"  The  traveller  is  haunted  by  the  face  of  the  popular  starvation.  It 
is  not  the  exception — it  is  the  condition  of  the  people.  In  this  fairest 
and  richest  of  countries,  men  are  suffering  and  starving  by  millions. 
There  are  thousands  of  them,  at  this  minute,  stretched  in  the  sunshine 
at  their  cabin  doors  with  no  work,  scarcely  any  food,  no  hope  seem 
ingly.  Strong  countrymen  are  lying  in  bed,  'for  the  hunger' — because 
a  man  lying  on  his  back  does  not  need  so  much  food  as  a  person 
afoot.  Many  of  them  have  torn  up  the  unripe  potatoes  from  their  little 
gardens,  and  to  exist  now  must  look  to  winter,  when  they  shall  have 
to  suffer  starvation  and  cold  too." — Thackeray. 

"Everywhere,"  said  the  Quarterly  Review,  "throughout  all  parts, 
even  in  the  best  towns,  and  in  Dublin  itself,  you  will  meet  men  and 
boys — not  dressed,  not  covered — but  hung  round  with  a  collection  of 
rags  of  unrivalled  variety,  squalidity,  and  filth — walking  dunghills. 
•:«•  *  *  NO  one  ever  saw  an  English  scarecrow  with  such  rags." 

The  difference  in  the  condition  of  these  poor  people  and  that  of 
the  slave — even  the  slave  of  Jamaica  at  that  day — consisted  in 
this,  that  the  negro  slave  was  worth  buying,  whereas  the  others 
were  not ;  and  we  know  well  that  the  man  who  pays  a  good  price 
for  a  commodity,  attaches  to  it  a  value  that  induces  him  to  give 
some  care  to  its  preservation;  whereas  he  cares  nothing  for  an 
other  that  he  finds  himself  forced  to  accept.  "  Starving  by  mil 
lions,"  as  they  are  here  described,  death  was  perpetually  separating 
husbands  and  wives,  parents  and  children,  while  to  the  survivors 
remained  no  hope  but  that  .of  being  enabled  at  some  time  or  other 
to  fly  to  another  land  in  which  they  might  be  permitted  to  sell  their 
Jubour  for  food  sufficient  to  support  life. 

The  existence  of  such  a  state  of  things  was,  said  the  advocates 
of  the  system  which  looks  to  converting  all  the  world  outside  of 
England  into  one  great  farm,  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that 
the  population  was  too  numerous  for  the  land,  and  yet  a  third  of 
the  surface,  including  the  richest  lands  in  the  kingdom,  was  lying 
unoccupied  and  waste. 

"Of  single  counties,"  said  an  English  writer,  "  Mayo,  with  a  popu 
lation  of  389,000,  and  a  rental  of  only  £300,000,  has  an  area  of 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  183 

I 

1,364,000  acres,  of  which  800,000  are  waste!  No  less  than  470,000 
acres,  being  very  nearly  equal  to  the  whole  extent  of  surface  now 
under  cultivation,  are  declared  to  be  reclaimable.  Galway,  with  a 
population  of  423,000,  and  a  valued  rental  of  £433,000,  has  upward 
of  700,000  acres  of  waste,  410,000  of  which  are  reclaimable !  Kerry, 
with  a  population  of  293,000,  has  an  area  of  1,180,000  acres— 727,000 
being  waste,  and  400,000  of  them  reclaimable !  Even  the  Union  of 
Glenties,  Lord  Monteagle's  ne  plus  ultra  of  redundant  population,  has 
an  area  of  245,000  acres,  of  which  200,000  are  waste,  and  for  the 
most  part  reclaimable,  to 'its  population  of  43,000.  While  the  Barony 
of  Ennis,  that  abomination  of  desolation,  has  230,000  acres  of  land 
to  its  5000  paupers — a  proportion  which,  as  Mr.  Carter,  one  of  the 
principal  proprietors,  remarks  in  his  circular  advertisement  for  te 
nants,  'is  at  the  rate  of  only  one  family  to  230  acres ;  so  that  if  but 
one  head  of  a  family  were  employed  to  every  230  acres,  there  need 
not  be  a  single  pauper  in  the  entire  district;  a  proof/  he  adds,  'THAT 

NOTHING  BUT  EMPLOYMENT  IS  WANTING  TO  SET  THIS  COUNTRY  TO  RIGHTS  !' 

In  which  opinion  we  fully  coincide." 

Nothing  but  employment  was  needed,  but  that  could  not  be 
found  under  the  system  which  has  caused  the  annihilation  of 
the  cotton  manufacture  of  India,  notwithstanding  the  advantage 
of  having  the  cotton  on  the  spot,  free  from  all  cost  for  carriage. 
As  in  Jamaica,  and  as  in  India,  the  land  had  been  gradually  ex 
hausted  by  the  exportation  of  its  products  in  their  rudest  state, 
and  the  country  had  thus  been  drained  of  capital,  a  necessary  con 
sequence  of  which  was  that  the  labour  even  of  men  found  no 
demand,  while  women  and  children  starved,  that  the  women  and 
children  of  England  might  spin  cotton  and  weave  cloth  that  Ire 
land  was  too  poor  to  purchase.  Bad,  however,  as  was  all  this,  a 
worse  state  of  things  was  at  hand.  Poverty  and  wretchedness 
compelled  the  wretched  people  to  fly  in  thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands  across  the  Channel,  thus  following  the  capital  and  the 
soil  that  had  been  transferred  to  Birmingham  and  Manchester; 
and  the  streets  and  cellars  of  those  towns,  and  those  of  London, 
Liverpool,  and  Glasgow,  were  filled  with  men,  women,  and  chil 
dren  in  a  state  almost  of  starvation  ]  while  throughout  the  country, 
men  were  offering  to  perform  the  farm  labour  for  food  alone,  and 
a  cry  had  arisen  among  the  people  of  England  that  the  labourers 
were  likely  to  be  swamped  by  these  starving  Irishmen  :  to  provide 
against  which  it  was  needed  that  the  landlords  of  Ireland  should 
be  compelled  to  support  their  own  poor,  and  forthwith  an  act  of 


184  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

Parliament  was  passed  for  that  purpose.  Thence  arose,  of  course, 
an  increased  desire  to  rid  the  country  of  the  men,  women,  and 
children  whose  labour  could  not  be  sold,  and  who  could  therefore 
pay  no  rent.  The  "Crowbar  Brigade"  was  therefore  called  into 
more  active  service,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  following  account  of 
their  labours  in  a  single  one  of  the  "  Unions"  established  under 
the  new  poor-law  system-,  which  in  many  cases  took  the  whole  rent 
of  the  land  for  the  maintenance  of  those  who  had  been  reduced 
to  pauperism  by  the  determination  of  the  people  of  Manchester 
and  Birmingham  to  continue  the  colonial  system  under  which  Ire 
land  had  been  ruined. 

"  In  Galway  Union,  recent  accounts  declared  the  number  of  poor 
evicted,  and  their  homes  levelled  within  the  last  two  years,  to  equal 
the  numbers  in  Kilrush — 4000  families  and  20,000  human  beings  are 
said  to  have  been  here  also  thrown  upon  the  road,  houseless  and 
homeless.  I  can  readily  believe  the  statement,  for  to  me  some  parts 
of  the  country  appeared  like  an  enormous  graveyard— the  numerous 
gables  of  the  unroofed  dwellings  seemed  to  be  gigantic  tombstones. 
They  were,  indeed,  records  of  decay  and  death  far  more  melancholy 
than  the  grave  can  show.  Looking  on  them,  the  doubt  rose  in  my 
mind,  am  I  in  a  civilized  country  ?  Have  we  really  a  free  constitu 
tion  ?  Can  such  scenes  be  paralleled  in  Siberia  or  Caffraria  ?" 

A  single  case  described  in  a  paper  recently  published  by  Mr. 
Dickens  in  his  "  Household  Words"  will  convey  to  the  reader  some 
idea  of  an  eviction,  that  may  be  taken  as  a  specimen,  and  perhaps 
a  fair  one,  of  the  fifty  thousand  evictions  that  took  place  in  the 
single  year  1849,  and  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  that  have  taken 
place  in  the  last  six  years. 

"Black  piles  of  peat  stood  on  the  solitary  ground,  ready  after  a  sum 
mer's  cutting  and  drying.  Presently,  patches  of  cultivation  presented 
themselves ;  plots  of  ground  raised  on  beds,  each  a  few  feet  wide,  with 
intervening  trenches  to  carry  off  the  boggy  water,  where  potatoes  haJ 
grown,  and  small  fields  where  grew  more  ragwort  than  grass,  enclosed 
by  banks  cast  up  and  tipped  here  and  therewith  a  brier  or  a  stone.  It 
was  the  husbandry  of  misery  and  indigence.  The  ground  had  already 
been  freshly  manured  by  sea-weeds,  but  the  village,  where  was  it? 
Blotches  of  burnt-ground,  scorched  heaps  of  rubbish,  and  fragments  of 
blackened  walls,  alone  were  visible.  Garden  plots  were  trodden  down 
and  their  few  bushes  rent  up,  or  hung  with  tatters  of  rags.  The  two 
horsemen,  as  they  hurried  by,  with  gloomy  visages,  uttered  no  more 
than  the  single  word — EVICTION  V 

The  scenes  that  had  taken  place  at  the  destruction  of  that  village, 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  185 

are  thus  described  to  the  author  of  the  sad  work,  by  a  poor  ser 
vant: — 

"Oh,  bless  your  honour!  If  you  had  seen  that  poor  frantic  woman 
when  the  back  of  the  cabin  fell  and  buried  her  infant,  where  she  thought 
she  had  laid  it  safe  for  a  moment  while  she  flew  to  partner  husband 
and  a  soldier  who  had  struck  the  other  children  wft&$ne  flat  of  his 
sword  and  bade  them  troop  off.  Oh,  but  your  honour"  ft  wras  a  killing 
sight !  *  *  *  I  could  not  help  thinking  of  the  poor  people  at  Rathbeg 
when  the  soldiers  and  police  cried,  '  Down  with  them  !  down  with  them 
even  to  the  ground!' — and  then  the  poor  little  cabins  came  down  all  in 
fire  and  smoke,  amid  the  howls  and  cries  of  the  poor  creatures.  Oh, 
it  was  a  fearful  sight,  your  honour — it  was  indeed — to  see  the  poor 
women  hugging  their  baj^ies,  and  the  houses  where  they  were  born 
burning  in  the  wind.  It  was  dreadful  to  see  the  old  bed-ridden  man 
lie  on  the  ground  among  the  few  bits  of  furniture,  and  groan  to  his 
gracious  God  above  !  Oh,  your  honour,  you  never  saw  such  a  sight,  or 
— you — sure  a — it  would  never  have  been  done." 

This  is  certainly  an  awful  picture  of  the  slavery  resulting  from 
compelling  a  whole  nation  to  devote  itself  to  agriculture,  and  thus 
annihilating  the  power  of  association — from  compelling  a  whole 
people  to  forego  all  the  advantages  resulting  from  proximity  to 
market  for  the  sale  of  their  products  or  the  purchase  of  manure — 
and  from  compelling  men,  women,  and  children  to  be  idle,  when  they 
would  desire  to  be  employed.  In  reading  it,  we  are  forcibly  re 
minded  of  the  razzias  of  the  little  African  kings,  who,  anxious  for 
a  fresh  supply  of  slaves,  collect  their  troops  together  and  invade 
the  neighbouring  territories,  where  they  enact  scenes  correspond 
ing  exactly  with  the  one  here  described.  In  Africa,  however,  the 
slave  is  fed  by  those  who  have  burned  and  destroyed  his  house  and 
his  farm;  but  in  Ireland,  as  labour  is  valueless,  he  is  turned  into 
the  roads  or  the  grave-yards  to  die  of  famine,  or  of  pestilence. 
And  yet,  even  now,  the  Times  asks  the  question — 

"  How  are  the  people  to  be  fed  and  employed?  That  is  the  question 
which  still  baffles  an  age  that  can  transmit  a  message  round  the  world 
in  a  moment  of  time,  and  point  out  the  locality  of  a  planet  never 
yet  seen.  There  is  the  question  which  founders  both  the  bold  and  the 
wise." 

Up  to  this  time  there  had  been  repeated  cases  of  partial  famine, 
but  now  the  nation  was  startled  by  the  news  of  the  almost  total 
failure  of  the  crop  of  potatoes,  the  single  description  of  food  upon 

16* 


186  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

which  the  people  of  Ireland  had  been  reduced  to  depend.  Constant 
cropping  of  the  soil,  returning  to  it  none  of  the  manure,  because  of 
the  necessity  for  exporting  almost  the  whole  of  its  products,  had 
produced  disease  in  the  vegetable  world — precisely  as  the  want  of 
proper  nourishment  produces  it  in  the  animal  world — and  now  a 
cry  of  famine  rang  throughout  the  land.  The  poor-houses  were 
everywhere  filled,  while  the  roads,  and  the  streets,  and  the  grave 
yards  were  occupied  by  the  starving  and  the  naked,  the  dying  and 
the  dead ;  and  the  presses  of  England  were  filled  with  denunciations 
of  English  and  Irish  landholders,  who  desired  to  make  food  dear, 
while  men,  women,  and  children  were  perishing  by  hundreds  of 
thousands  for  want  of  food.  Thus  far,  Ireland  had  been  pro 
tected  in  the  market  of  England,  as  some  small  compensation  for 
the  sacrifice  she  had  made  of  her  manufacturing  interests ;  but  now, 
small  as  has  been  the  boon,  it  was  to  be  withdrawn,  precisely  as 
we  see  to  have  been  the  case  with  the  poor  people  of  Jamaica. 
Like  them,  the  Irish  had  become  poor,  and  their  trade  had  ceased 
to  be  of  value,  although  but  seventy  years  before  they  had  been 
England's  lest  customers.  The  system  had  exhausted  all  the  fo 
reign  countries  with  which  England  had  been  permitted  to  maintain 
what  is  denominated  free  trade — India,  Portugal,  Turkey,  the 
West  Indies,  and  Ireland  herself — and  it  had  become  necessary  to 
make  an  effort  to  obtain  markets  in  the  only  prosperous  countries 
of  the  world,  those  which  had  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  placed  the 
consumer  by  the  side  of  the  producer,  to  wit — this  country, 
France,  Belgium,  Germany,  .and  Russia — and  the  mode  of  accom 
plishing  this  was  that  of  offering  them  the  same  freedom  of  trade 
in  food  by  which  Ireland  had  been  ruined.  The  farmers  were 
everywhere  invited  to  exhaust  their  soil  by  sending  its  products  to 
England  to  be  consumed;  and  the  corn-laws  were  repealed  for  the 
purpose  of  enabling  them  to  impoverish  themselves  by  entering 
into  competition  with  the  starving  Irishman,  who  was  thus  at  once 
deprived  of  the  market  of  England,  as  by  the  Act  of  Union  he  had 
been  deprived  of  his  own.  The  cup  of  wretchedness  was  before 
well  nigh  full,  but  it  was  now  filled.  The  price  of  food  fell,  and 
the  labourer  was  ruined,  for  the  whole  product  of  his  land  would 


DOMESTIC  AND   FOREIGN.  187 

scarcely  pny  Lis  rent.  The  landlord  was  ruined,  for  he  could  col 
lect  no  rents,  and  he  was  at  the  same  time  liable  for  the  payment 
of  enormous  taxes  for  the  maintenance  of  his  poor  neighbours. 
His  land  was  encumbered  with  mortgages  and  settlements,  created 
when  food  was  high,  and  he  could  pay  no  interest;  and  now  a  law 
was  passed,  by  aid  of  which  property  could  be  summarily  disposed 
of  at  public  sale,  and  the  proceeds  distributed  among  those  who 
had  legal  claims  upon  it.  The  landholder  of  Jamaica,  exhausted  by 
the  system,  had  had  his  property  taken  from  him  at  a  price  fixed  by 
Parliament,  and  the  proceeds  applied  to  the  discharge  of  debts  in 
curred  to  his  English  agents,  and  now  the  same  Parliament  pro 
vided  for  the  transfer  of  Irish  property  with  a  view  to  the  payment 
of  the  same  class  of  debts.  The  impoverished  landholder  now  ex 
perienced  the  same  fate  that  had  befallen  his  poor  tenant,  and  from 
that  date  to  this,  famine  and  pestilence,  levellings  and  evictions, 
have  been  the  order  of  the  day.  Their  effect  has  everywhere  been 
to  drive  the  poor  people  from  the  land,  and  its  consequences  are 
seen  in  the  fact  that  the  population  numbered,  in  1850,  one  million 
six  hundred  and  fifty-nine  thousand  less  than  it  did  in  1840;  while 
the  starving  population  of  the  towns  had  largely  increased.  The 
county  of  Cork  had  diminished  222,000,  while  Dublin  had  grown 
in  numbers  22,000.  Galway  had  lost  125,000,  while  the  city  had 
gained  7422.  Connaught  had  lost  414,000,  while  Limerick  and 
Belfast  had  gained  30,000.  The  number  of  inhabited  houses  had 
fallen  from  1,328,000  to  1,047,000,  or  more  than  twenty  per  cent. 
Announcing  these  startling  facts,  the  London  Times  stated  that 
"for  a  whole  generation  man  had  been  a  drug  in  Ireland,  and 
population  a  nuisance."  The  "  inexhaustible  Irish  supply  had," 
as  it  continued,  "kept  down  the  price  of  English  labour,"  but  this 
cheapness  of  labour  had  "  contributed  vastly  to  the  improvement 
and  power"  of  England,  and  largely  to  "the  enjoyment  of  those 
who  had  money  to  spend."  Now,  however,  a  change  appeared  to 
be  at  hand,  and  it  was  to  be  feared  that  the  prosperity  of  England, 
based  as  it  had  been  on  cheap  Irish  labour,  might  be  interfered 
with,  as  famine  and  pestilence,  evictions  and  emigration,  were  thin 
ning  out  the  Celts  who  had  so  long,  as  it  is  said,  been  "hewers 


188  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

of  wood  and  drawers  of  water  for  the  Saxon. "  Another  of 
the  advocates  of  the  system  which  has  exhausted  and  ruined  Ire 
land,  and  is  now  transferring  its  land  to  the  men  who  have  en 
riched  themselves  by  acting  as  middlemen  between  the  producers 
and  consumers  of  the  world,  rejoicing  in  the  great  number  of  those 
who  had  fled  from  their  native  soil  to  escape  the  horrors  of  starva 
tion  and  pestilence,  declares  that  this  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  joyful 
side  of  the  case.  "  What/'  it  asks, 

"Will  follow?  This  great  good,  among  others — that  the  stagnant 
weight  of  unemployed  population  in  these  insulated  realms  is  never 
likely  again  to  accumulate  to  the  dangerous  amount  which  there  was 
sometimes  cause  to  apprehend  that,  from  unforeseen  revulsions  in  in 
dustry  or  foreign  trade,  it  might  have  done.  A  natural  vent  is  now  so 
thoroughly  opened,  and  so  certain  to  grow  wider  and  clearer  every  day, 
that  the  overflow  will  pass  off  whenever  a  moderate  degree  of  pressure 
recurs.  Population,  skill,  and  capital,  also,  will  no  longer  wait  in 
consternation  till  they  are  half  spent  with  watching  and  fear.  The 
way  is  ready.  They  will  silently  shift  their  quarters  when  the  compe 
tition  or  depression  here  becomes  uncomfortable.  Every  family  has 
already  friends  or  acquaintances  who  have  gone  before  them  over  sea. 
Socially,  our  insulation  as  a  people  is  proved,  by  the  census  of  1851, 
to  be  at  an  end." — Daily  News. 

The  Times,  too,  rejoices  in  the  prospect  that  the  resources  of 
Ireland  will  now  probably  be  developed,  as  the  Saxon  takes  the 
place  of  the  Celt,  who  has  so  long  hewn  the  wood  and  drawn  the 
water  for  his  Saxon  masters.  "  Prosperity  and  happiness  may," 
as  it  thinks, 

"Some  day  reign  over  that  beautiful  island.  Its  fertile  soil,  its 
rivers  and  lakes,  its  water-power,  its  minerals,  and  other  materials  for 
the  wants  and  luxuries  of  man,  may  one  day  be  developed  ;  but  all  ap 
pearances  are  against  the  belief  that  this  will  ever  happen  in  the  days 
of  the  Celt.  That  tribe  will  soon  fulfil  the  great  law  of  Providence 
which  seems  to  enjoin  and  reward  the  union  of  races.  It  will  mix 
with  the  Anglo-American,  and  be  known  no  more  as  a  jealous  and 
separate  people.  Its  present  place  will  be.  occupied  by  the  more  mixed, 
more  docile,  and  more  serviceable  race,  which  has  long  borne  the  yoke 
of  sturdy  industry  in  this  island,  which  can  submit  to  a  master  and 
obey  the  law.  This  is  no  longer  a  dream,  for  it  is  a  fact  now  in  pro 
gress,  and  every  day  more  apparent." 

Commenting  upon  the  view  thus  presented,  an  American  jour 
nalist  most  truly  says — 

"  There  is  a  cold-blooded  atrocity  in  the  spirit  of  these  remarks  for 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  189 

which  examples  will  be  sought  in  vain,  except  among  the  doctors  of 
the  free-trade  school.  Naturalists  have  learned  to  look  with  philo 
sophical  indifference  upon  the  agonies  of  a  rabbit  or  a  mouse  expiring 
in  an  exhausted  receiver,  but  it  requires  long  teaching  from  the  econo 
mists  before  men's  hearts  can  be  so  steeled,  that  after  pumping  out  all 
the  sustenance  of  vitality  from  one  of  the  fairest  islands  under  the 
sun,  they  can.  discourse  calmly  upon  its  depopulation  as  proof  of  the 
success  of  the  experiment,  can  talk  with  bitter  irony  of  'that  strange 
region  of  the  earth  where  such  a  people,  affectionate  and  hopeful,  ge 
nial  and  witty,  industrious  and  independent,  was  produced  and  could 
not  stay,'  and  can  gloat  in  the  anticipation  that  prosperity  and  happi 
ness  may  some  day  reign  over  that  beautiful  island,  and  its  boundless 
resources  for  the  wants  and  luxuries  of  man  be  developed,  not' for  the 
Celt,  but  'for  a  more  mixed,  more  docile,  and  more  serviceable  race, 
which  can  submit  to  a  master  and  obey  the  law/  ;; — Albany  Journal. 

The  Times  rejoices  that  the  place  of  the  Celt  is  in  future  to  be 
occupied  by  cattle,  as  sheep  already  occupy  the  place  of  the  High 
lander  expelled  from  the  land  in  which,  before  Britain  undertook 
to  underwork  all  other  nations  and  thus  secure  a  monopoly  for  "the 
workshop  of  the  world/'  his  fathers  were  as  secure  in  their  rights 
as  was  the  landowner  himself.  Irish  journals  take  a  different 
view  of  the  prospect.  They  deprecate  the  idea  of  the  total  expul 
sion  of  the  native  race,  and  yet  they  fear  that 

"  There  is  no  doubt  that  in  a  few  years  more,  if  some  stop  is  not 
put  to  the  present  outpouring  of  the  people  to  America,  and  latterly  to 
Australia,  there  will  not  be  a  million  of  the  present  race  of  inhabit 
ants  to  be  found  within  the  compass  of  the  four  provinces/7 

"  No  thoughts  of  the  land  of  their  birth/'  it  continues,  "  seems  to 
enter  their  minds,  although  the  Irish  people  have  been  proverbial  for 
their  attachment  to  their  country." — Connaught  Western  Star. 

A  recent  journal  informs  us  that 

"  The  Galway  papers  are  full  of  the  most  deplorable  accounts  of 
wholesale  evictions,  or  rather  exterminations,  in  that  miserable  coun 
try.  The  tenantry  are  turned  out  of  the  cottages  by  scores  at  a  time. 
As  many  as  203  men,  women,  and  children  have  been  driven  upon  the 
roads  and  ditches  by  way  of  one  day's  work,  and  have  now  no  resource 
but  to  beg  their  bread  in  desolate  places,  or  to  bury  their  griefs,  in 
many  instances  for  ever,  within  the  walls  of  the  Union  workhouse. 
Land  agents  direct  the  operation.  The  work  is  done  by  a  large  force 
of  police  and  soldiery.  Under  the  protection  of  the  latter,  '  the  Crow 
bar  Brigade' advances  to  the  devoted  township,  takes  possession  of  the 
houses,  such  as  they  are,  and,  with  a  few  turns  of  the  crowbar  and  a 
few  pulls  at  a  rope,  bring  down  the  roof,  and  leave  nothing  but  a 
tottering  chimney,  if  even  that.  The  sun  that  rose  on  a  village  sets 
on  a  desert ;  the  police  return  to  their  barracks,  and  the  people  are 


190 

nowhere  to  be  found,  or  are  vainly  watching  from  some  friendly  covert 
for  the  chance  of  crouching  once  more  under  their  ruined  homes. 

"  What  to  the  Irish  heart  is  more  painful  than  even  the  large 
amount  and  stern  method  of  the  destruction,  is  that  the  authors  this 
time  are  Saxon  strangers.  It  is  a  wealthy  London  company  that  is 
invading  the  quiet  retreats  of  Connemara,  and  robbing  a  primitive 
peasantry  of  its  last  hold  on  the  earth.  The  Law  Life  Assurance 
Company  having  advanced,  we  believe,  £240,000  on  the  Martin 
estates,  has  now  become  the  purchaser  under  the  Encumbered  Estates 
Acts,  and  is  adopting  these  summary  but  usual  measures  to  secure 
the  forfeited  pledge.  That  gentlemen,  many  of  whom  have  never  set 
foot  in  Ireland,  and  who  are  wealthy  enough  to  lend  a  quarter  of  a 
million  of  money,  should  exact  the  last  penny  from  a  wretched  pea 
santry  who  had  no  hand  or  voice  in  the  transaction  which  .gave 
them" new  masters,  seems  utterly  intolerable  to  the  native  Irish 
reason/'  / 

With  the  growth  of  the  value  of  land,  man  has  always  become 
free.  With  the  decline  in  its  value,  man  has  always  become  en 
slaved.  If  we  desire  to  find  the  cause  of  the  enormous  destruc 
tion  of  life  in  Ireland,  even  in  this  day  of  boasted  civilization — if 
we  desire  to  find  the  cause  of  the  eviction  of  tenant  and  landlord, 
and  the  decline  in  the  value  of  land,  we  need  scarcely  look  beyond 
the  following  paragraph  : — 

"  The  cotton  manufacture  of  Dublin,  which  employed  14,000  opera 
tives,  has  been  destroyed ;  the  3400  silk-looms  of  the  Liberty  have 
been  destroyed ;  the  stuff  and  serge  manufacture,  which  employed 
1491  operatives,  have  been  destroyed  ;  the  calico-looms  of  Balbriggan 
have  been  destroyed ;  the  flannel  manufacture  of  Rathdrum  has  been 
destroyed ;  the  blanket  manufacture  of  Kilkenny  has  been  destroyed  ; 
the  camlet  trade  of  Bandon,  which  produced  £100,000  a  year,  has 
been  destroyed ;  the  worsted  and  stuff  manufactures  of  Waterford 
have  been  destroyed ;  the  rateen  and  frieze  manufactures  of  Carrick- 
on-Suir  have  been  destroyed.  One  business  alone  survives !  One 
business  alone  thrives  and  flourishes,  and  dreads  no  bankruptcy ! 
That  fortunate  business — which  the  Union  Act  has  not  struck  down, 
but  which  the  Union  Act  has  stood  by — which  the  absentee  drain  has 
not  slackened,  but  has  stimulated — which  the  drainage  Acts  and 
navigation  laws  of  the  Imperial  Senate  have  not  deadened  but  invigo 
rated — that  favoured,  and  privileged,  and  patronized  business  is  the 
Irish  coffin-maker's."* 

To  the  separation  of  the  consumer  from  the  producer  resulting 
from  the  adoption  of  the  system  which  has  for  its  object  the  esta- 

*  Speech  of  Mr  T.  F.  Meagher,  1847. 


DOMESTIC  ASD   FOREIGN.  191 

blishment  of  a  monopoly  of  the  machinery  of  manufacture  for  the 
world,  are  due  the  exhaustion  of  Ireland,  the  ruin  of  its  landhold 
ers,  the  starvation  of  its  people,  and  the  degradation  in  the  eyes 
of  the  world  of  the  country  which  has  furnished  to  the  continent 
its  best  soldiers,  and  to  the  empire  not  only  its  most  industrious 
and  intelligent  labourers,  but  also  its  Burke,  its  Grattan,  its  Sheri 
dan,  and  its  Wellington.  And  yet  we  find  the  Times  rejoicing  at 
the  gradual  disappearance  of  the  native  population,  and  finding  in 

"The  abstraction  of  the  Celtic  race  at  the  rate  of  a  quarter  of  a 
million  a  year,  a  surer  remedy  for  the  inveterate  Irish  disease,  than  any 
human  wit  could  have  imagined." 

The  "  inveterate  Irish  disease"  here  spoken  of  is  a  total  ab 
sence  of  demand  for  labour,  resulting  from  the  unhappy  determi 
nation  of  the  people  of  England  to  maintain  the  monopoly  of  the 
power  to  manufacture  for  the  world.  The  sure  remedy  for  this  is 
found  in  famines,  pestilences,  and  expatriation,  the  necessary  re 
sults  of  the  exhaustion  of  the  land  which  follows  the  exportation 
of  its  raw  products.  A  stronger  confirmation  of  the  destructive 
character  of  such. a  course  of  policy  than  is  contained  in  the  fol 
lowing  paragraph  could  scarcely  be  imagined  : — 

"When  the  Celt  has  crossed  the  Atlantic,  he  begins  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life  to  consume  the  manufactures  of  this  country,  and 
indirectly  to  contribute  to  its  customs.  We  may  possibly  live  to  see 
the  day  when  the  chief  product  of  Ireland  will  be  cattle,  and  English 
and  Scotch  the  majority  of  her  population.  The  nine  or  ten  millions 
of  Irish,  who  by  that  time  will  have  settled  in  the  United  States,  can 
not  be  less  friendly  to  England,  and  will  certainly  be  much  better 
customers  to  her  than  they  now  are." — London  Times. 

When  the  Celt  leaves  Ireland  he  leaves  an  almost  purely  agri 
cultural  country,  and  in  such  countries  man  generally  approaches 
nearly  to  the  condition  of  a  slave.  When  he  comes  here  he  comes 
to  a  country  in  which  to  some  little  extent  the  plough  and  the  loom 
have  been  enabled  to  come  together ;  and  here  he  becomes  a  free 
man  and  a  customer  of  England. 

The  nation  that  commences  by  exporting  raw  products  must  end 
by  exporting  men ;  and  if  we  desire  evidence  of  this,  we  need  only 


192 

look  to  the  following  figures,  furnished  by  the  last  four  censuses  of 
Ireland  : — 

1821 6,801,827 

1831 7,767,401— Increase,      965,574 

1841 8,175,124— Increase,      407,723 

1851 6,515,794— Decrease,  1.659,330 

To  what  causes  may  this  extraordinary  course  of  events  be  at 
tributed?  Certainly  not  to  any  deficiency  of  land,  for  nearly  one- 
third  of  the  whole  surface,  including  millions  of  acres  of  the  rich 
est  soils  of  the  kingdom,  remains  in  a  state  of  nature.  Not  to 
original  inferiority  of  the  soil  in  cultivation,  for  it  has  been  con 
fessedly  among  the  richest  in  the  empire.  Not  to  a  deficiency  of 
mineral  ores  or  fuel,  for  coal  abounds,  and  iron  ores  of  the  richest 
kind,  as  well  as  those  of  other  metals,  exist  in  vast  profusion. 
Not  to  any  deficiency  in  the  physical  qualities  of  the  Irishman,  for 
it  is  an  established  fact  that  he  is  capable  of  performing  far  more 
labour  than  the  Englishman,  the  Frenchman,  or  the  Belgian. 
Not  to  a  deficiency  of  intellectual  ability,  for  Ireland  has  given  to 
England  her  most  distinguished  soldiers  and  statesmen  ;  and  we 
have  in  this  country  everywhere  evidence  that  the  Irishman  is 
capable  of  the  highest  degree  of  intellectual  improvement.  Never 
theless,  while  possessed  of  every  advantage  that  nature  could  give 
him,  we  find  the  Irishman  at  home  a  slave  to  the  severest  task 
masters,  and  reduced  to  a  condition  of  poverty  and  distress  such 
as  is  exhibited  in  no  other  portion  of  the  civilized  world.  No 
choice  is  now  left  him  but  between  expatriation  and  starvation, 
and  therefore  it  is  that  we  see  him  everywhere  abandoning 
the  home  of  his  fathers,  to  seek  elsewhere  that  subsistence  which 
Ireland,  rich  as  she  is  in  soil  and  in  her  minerals,  in  her  naviga 
ble  rivers,  and  in  her  facilities  of  communication  with  the  world, 
can  no  longer  afford  him. 

That  the  process  of  eviction  is  still  continued  on  an  extensive 
scale  is  shown  by  the  following  extracts  from  Sir  Francis  Head's 
work  on  Ireland,  just  issued  from  the  press  : — 

"  Here  almost  immediately  I  first  met  with  that  afflicting  spectacle, 
or  rather  spectre,  that  almost  without  intermission  haunted  me  through 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  193 

the  whole  remainder  of  my  tour,  namely,  stout  stone-built  cabins,  ur<- 
*  roofed  for  the  purpose  of  evicting  therefrom  their  insolvent  tenants." — 
P.  110. 

"On  conversing  with  the  master,  I  ascertained  from  him  that  Lord 
Lucan's  evictions  have  ceased,  but  that  Lord  Erne  evicted  on  Saturday 
last."*— P.  115. 

"  '  Is  this  system  of  eviction/  said  I  to  the  driver,  pointing  to  a 
small  cluster  of  unroofed  cabins  we  were  passing  at  the  moment,  'good 
or  bad  ?'  '  Well !  yere  Arn'r !'  he  replied,  '  ut's  good  and  ut's  bad. 
Ut's  good  for  them  that  hould  large  lands,  bad  for  the  small.  Ut  laves 
nothing  for  tham  but  the  workhouse.' " — P.  121. 

The  tendency  of  the  system  which  looks  to  the  exportation  of 
raw  produce  and  the  exhaustion  of  the  soil  is  always  toward  the 
consolidation  of  the  land,  because  the  exportation  of  population, 
whether  from  Ireland,  India,  or  Virginia,  always  follows  in  the 
wake  of  the  exportation  of  food  and  other  raw  commodities. 

"  Among  the  men  were  only  four  that  could  fairly  be  called  '  able- 
bodied  ;'  each  of  them  told  me  he  had  been  evicted  by  Lord  Lucan.  -I 
asked  the  master  what  had  become  of  the  rest.  His  answer  was  very 
instructive.  '  Most  of  them/  said  he,  '  if  they  can  scrape  up  half-a- 
crown,  go  to  England,  from  whence,  after  some  little  time,  they  send 
from.  2*.  Qd.  to  10*.  and,  as  soon  as  their  families  get  that,  they  are  off 
to  them/ 

"'Does  the  father  go  first?'  I  thoughtlessly  asked. 

'"Oh,  no  !  we  keep  him  to  the  last.  One  daughter  went  off  to  Eng 
land  from  here  a  short  time  ago,  and  sent  7s.  QcL  That  took  out  the 
mother  and  another  sister.  In  a  few  weeks  the  mother  and  sister  sent 
enough  to  get  over  the  remaining  two  sons  and  the  father.  Total  of 
the  family,  6.'  "— P.  127. 

In  the  above  passage  we  have  the  equivalent  of  the  exportation  of 
the  negro  from  the  Northern  Slave  States.  Husbands  and  wives, 
parents  and  children,  are  forced  to  fly  from  each  other,  never  to 

#  The  following  paragraph  from  an  Irish  journal  exhibits  strikingly  the 
amount  of  political  freedom  exercised  at  the  scene  of  these  evictions  : — 

"  Lord  Erne  held  his  annual  show  in  Ballindreat,  on  Monday,  the  25th  ult.,  and 
after  having  delivered  himself  much  as  usual  in  regard  to  agricultural  matters,  he 
proceeded  to  lecture  the  assembled  tenants  on  the  necessity  of  implicit  obedience 
to  those  who  were  placed  over  them,  in  reference  not  only  to  practical  agricul 
ture,  but  the  elective  franchise.  To  such  of  the  tenants  as  his  lordship  considered 
to  be  of  the  right  stamp,  and  who  proved  themselves  so  by  voting  for  Sir  Edmund 
Hayes  and  Thomas  Connolly,  Esq.,  the  15  per  cent,  in  full  would  be  allowed — to 
those  who  split  their  votes  between  one  or  other  of  these  gentlemen  and  Camp 
bell  Johnston,  Esq.,  7£  per  cent. ;  but  to  the  m6n  who  had  the  manliness  ta 
'plump'  for  Johnston,  no  reduction  of  rents  would  be  allowed  this  year  or  any 
other  until  such  parties  might  redeem  their  character  at  another  election/' — Cork 
Examiner^  Xoi\  8,  IS32* 

17 


194  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

meet  again  unless  those  who  emigrate  can  save  means  to  send  for 
those  who  are  left  behind. 

"  We  were  now  joined  by  the  head-steward — a  sedate,  highly  intelli 
gent,  respoctable-looking  Scotchman,  who  has  been  in  Ireland  thirteen 
years.  He  told  me  that  the  number  of  persons  that  had  been  ejected 
was  about  10,000,  of  whom  one-tenth  were  employed  by  Lord  Lucan, 
who  had  given  most  of  them  cottages." 

"  We  passed  a  cabin,  and,  closing  my  umbrella  and  leaving  it  on 
the  car,  I  walked  in. 

"  '  Will  yere  Arn'r  take  a  sate  ?'  said  a  woman  about  thirty-eight, 
with  a  fine,  open  countenance,  her  eyes  being  listlessly  fixed  on  the 
daylight. 

"  1  sat  down.  On  her  lap  was  an  infant.  Three  bare-footed  chil 
dren,  as  if  hatching  eggs,  sat  motionless  on  the  edge  of  a  peat  fire, 
which  appeared  to  be  almost  touching  their  naked  toes ;  above  the 
embers  was  demurely  hanging  a  black  pot.  Opposite  sat,  like  a  bit 
of  gnarled  oak,  the  withered  grandmother.  The  furniture  was  com 
posed  of  a  dingy-coloured  wooden  wardrobe,  with  a  few  plates  on  the 
top,  and  one  bed  close  to  the  fire.  There  wras  no  chimney  but  the 
door,  on  the  threshold  of  which  stood,  looking  exceedingly  unhappy, 
four  dripping  wet  fowls  ;  at  the  far  end  of  the  chamber  was  a  regular 
dungheap,  on  which  stood  an  ass. 

"  '  Where  is  your  husband,  my  good  woman  ?'  I  said  to  the  young 
est  of  the  women. 

"  'In  England,  yere  Arn'r,'  she  replied,  'saking  work/" — P.  132. 

(t  Seeking  work !"  and  yet  Ireland  abounds  in  the  richest  land 
uncultivated,  and  mineral  wealth  untouched,  because  the  system 
forbids  that  men  should  combine  their  efforts  together  for  the  im 
provement  of  their  common  condition. 

"After  trotting  on  for  about  a  mile,. and  after  I  had  left  Lord 
Lucanxs  property,  I  came  as  usual  to  a  small  village  of  unroofed 
cabins,  from  the  stark  walls  of  which,  to  my  astonishment,  I  saw  here 
and  there  proceeding  a  little  smoke ;  and,  on  approaching  it,  I  beheld 
a  picture  I  shall  not  readily  forget.  The  tenants  had  been  all  evicted, 
and  yet,  dreadful  to  say,  they  were  there  still !  the  children  nestling, 
and  the  poor  women  huddling  together,  under  a  temporary  lean-to  of 
straw,  which  they  had  managed  to  stick  into  the  interstices  of  the 
walls  of  their  ancient  homes. 

"'This  is  a  quare  place,  yere  Arn'rT  said  a  fine,  honest-looking 
woman,  kindly  smiling  to  me,  adding,  '  Sit  down,  yere  Arn'r !' 

"  One  of  her  four  children  got  up  and  offered  me  his  stool. 

"  Under  another  temporary  shed  I  found  a  tall  woman  heavy  with 
child,  a  daughter  about  sixteen,  and  four  younger  children — her  hus 
band  was  also  in  England,  '  sakin  work.'  I  entered  two  or  three 
more  of  these  wretched  habitations,  around  which  were  the  innumera 
ble  tiny  fields,  surrounded  by  those  low  tottering  stone  walls  I  have 
already  described**  *  *-— P  13G. 


DOMESTIC 'AND  FOREIGN.  195 

"  They  were  really  good  people,  and  from  what  I  read  in  their 
countenances,  I  feel  confident,  that  if,  instead  of  distributing  amotig 
them  a  few  shillings,  I  had  asked  them  to  feed  me,  with  the  kindest 
hospitality  they  would  readily  have  done  so,  and  that  with  my  gold  in 
in  my  pocket  I  might  have  slept  among  them  in  the  most  perfect 
security. 

"  The  devotional  expressions  of  the  lower  class  of  Irish,  and  the 
meekness  and  resignation  with  which  they  bear  misfortune  or  afflic 
tion,  struck  me  very  forcibly.  'I  haven't  aten  a  bit  this  blessed  day, 
glory  be  to  God!'  said  one  woman.  'Troth,  I've  been  suffering 
Ihong  time  from  poverty  and  sickness,  glory  be  to  God  !'  said  another. 
On  entering  a  strange  cabin,  the  common  salutation  is,  '  God  save  all 
here  !'  On  passing  a  gang  of  comrades  at  labour,  a  man  often  says, 
'  God  bless  the  work,  boys  !' — P.  137. 

The  extirpation  of  the  people  results  necessarily  in  the  decay 
of  the  towns,  as  is  here  shown  : — 

"  When  my  bill  came, — for  one's  bill  at  an  inn,  like  death,  is  sure 
to  come, — I  asked  the  waiter  what  effect  the  evictions  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  had  had  on  the  town. 

"  '  They  have  ruined  it,'  he  replied;  'the  poor  used  to  support  the 
rich ;  now  that  the  poor  are  gone  the  rich  shopkeepers  are  all  failing. 
Our  town  is  full  of  empty  shops,  and,  after  all,  the  landlord  himself 
is  now  being  ruined  !'  " — P.  147. 

Cheap  labour  and  cheap  land  are  always  companions.  In  Ja 
maica  and  India,  land,  as  we  have  seen,  is  almost  valueless.  How 
it  is  in  Ireland  may  be  seen  by  the  following  passage  : — 

"  Adjoining  is  a  similar  property  of  about  10,000  acres,  purchased, 
I  was  informed,  by  Captain  Houston,  a  short  time  ago,  at  the  rate  of 
2Jd.  an  acre."— P."  153. 

In  a  paper  recently  read  before  the  statistical  section  of  the  Bri 
tish  Association,  it  is  shown  that  the  estates  recently  purchased 
in  Ireland  by  English  capital  embraced  403,065  acres,  and  that 
the  purchase  money  had  been  £1,095,000,  or  about  £2  15s. 
($13.20)  per  acre,  being  little  more  than  is  paid  for  farms  with 
very  moderate  improvements  in  the  new  States  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley. 

Why  land  is  cheap  and  labour  badly  rewarded  may  easily  be 
seen  on  a  perusal  of  the  following  passages : — 

"  '  Chickuns  are  about  5d.  a  couple,  dooks  Wd.     A  couple  of  young 
gaise  10tZ. ;  when  auld,  not  less  than  1*.  or  14c?.' 
"  '  And  turkeys  ?'  I  asked. 
"  '  I  can't  say ;  we  haven't  many  of  thim  in  the  counthry,  and  I  doii't 


196 

want  to  tell  yere  Arn'r  a  lie.  Fish,  little  or  nothing.  A  larg<, 
tufbot,  of  30  Ibs.  weight,  for  3s.  Lobsters,  a  dozen  for  4d.  Soles,  Id. 
or  3c?.  a  piece.  T'other  day  I  bought  a  turbot,  of  15  Ibs.  weight,  for 
a  gentleman,  and  I  paid  I8d.  for  ut.' " — P.  178. 

"  '  What  do  you  pay  for  your  tea  and  sugar  here  ?'  I  inquired. 

"  '  Very  dare,  sir/  he  replied.  *  We  pay  6s.  for  tea,  6d.  for  brown 
sugar,  and  8d.  for  white ;  that  is,  if  we  buy  a  single  pound/  " — P.  187. 

The  sugar  of  the  labourer  of  Jamaica  exchanges  in  Manchester 
for  three  shillings,  of  which  he  receives  perhaps  one,  and  he 
perishes  because  of  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  machinery  or  cloth 
ing.  The  Hindoo  sells  his  cotton  for  a  penny  a  pound,  and  buys 
it  back  in  the  form  of  cloth  at  eighteen  or  twenty  pence. 
The  Virginia  negro  raises  tobacco  which  exchanges  for  six  shil 
lings'  worth  of  commodities,  of  which  he  and  his  owner  obtain 
three  pence.  The  poor  Irishman  raises  chickens  which  sell  in 
London  for  shillings,  of  which  he  receives  pence,  and  thus  a 
pound  of  sugar  which  had  yielded  the  free  negro  of  Jamaica 
two  pence,  exchanges  in  the  West  of  Ireland  for  a  pair  of  chick 
ens  or  a  dozen  lobsters.  The  reader  who  may  study  these  facts 
will  readily  understand  the  destructive  effects  on  the  value  of 
land  and  labour  resulting  from  the  absence  of  markets,  such  as 
arise  naturally  where  the  plough  and  the  loom  are  permitted,  in 
accordance  with  the  doctrines  of  Adam  Smith,  to  take  their  places 
by  the  side  of  each  other.  More  than  seventy  years  since  he  de 
nounced  the  system  which  looked  to  compelling  the  exports  of  raw 
produce  as  one  productive  of  infinite  injustice,  and  certainly  the 
histories  of  Jamaica  and  Virginia,  Ireland  and  India,  since  his 
time,  would  afford  him,  were  he  now  present,  little  reason  for  a 
change  of  opinion. 

It  is  common  to  ascribe  the  state  of  things  now  existing  in  Ire 
land  to  the  rapid  growth  of  population ;  and  that  in  its  turn  is 
charged  to  the  account  of  the  potato,  the  excessive  use  of  which, 
as  Mr.  McCulloch  informs  his  readers,  has  lowered  the  standard  of 
living  and  tended  to  the  multiplication  of  men,  women,  and  chil 
dren.  "The  peasantry  of  Ireland  live,"  as  he  says,  "in  miserable 
mud  cabins,  without  either  a  window  or  a  chimney,  or  any  thing 
that  can  be  called  furniture,"  and  are  distinguished  from  their  fel- 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  197 

low  labourers  across  the  Channel  by  their  "  filth  and  misery,"  and 
hence  it  is,  in  his  opinion,  that  they  work  for  low  wages.  We  have 
here  effect  substituted  for  cause.  The  absence  of  demand  for 
labour  causes  wages  to  be  low,  and  those  wages  will  procure  nothing 
but  mud  cabins  and  potatoes.  It  is  admitted  everywhere  through 
out  the  continent  of  Europe  that  the  introduction  of  the  potato  has 
tended  greatly  to  the  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the  people ; 
but  then,  there  is  no  portion  of  the  continent  in  which  it  is  used, 
where  it  constitutes  an  essential  part  of  the  governmental  policy  to 
deprive  millions  of  people  of  all  mode  of  employment  except  agri 
culture,  and  thus  placing  those  millions  at  such  a  distance  from 
market  that  the  chief  part  of  their  labour  and  its  products  is  lost 
in  the  effort  to  reach  that  market,  and  their  land  is  exhausted  be 
cause  of  the  impossibility  of  returning  to  the  soil  any  portion  of 
the  crop  yielded  by  it.  Commercial  centralization  produces  all 
these  effects.  It  looks  to  the  destruction  of  the  value  of  labour 
and  land,  and  to  the  enslavement  of  man.  It  tends  to  the  division 
of  the  whole  population  into  two  classes,  separated  by  an  impass 
able  gulf — the  mere  labourer  and  the  land-owner.  It  tends  to  the 
destruction  of  the  power  of  association  for  any  purpose  of  improve 
ment,  whether  by  the  making  of  roads  or  by  the  founding  of 
schools,  and  of  course  to  the  prevention  of  the  growth  of  towns,  as 
•we  see  to  have  been  the  case  with  Jamaica,  so  barbarous  in  this  re 
spect  when  compared  with  Martinique  or  Cuba,  islands  whose  go 
vernments  have  not  looked  to  the  perpetual  divorce  of  the  hammer 
and  the  harrow.  The  decay  of  towns  in  Ireland,  subsequent  to  the 
Union,  led  to  absenteeism,  and  thus  added  to  the  exhaustion  of  the 
land,  because  Irish  wheat  was  now  needed  to  pay  not  only  for 
English  cloth  but  for  English  services;  and  the  more  the  central 
ization  resulting  from  absenteeism,  the  greater  necessarily  was  the 
difficulty  of  maintaining  the  productive  powers  of  the  soil.  Mr. 
McCulloch,  however,  assures  his  readers  that  "it  is  not  easy  to 
imagine  any  grounds  for  pronouncing  the  expenditure  of  the  rent 
at  home  "  more  beneficial"  to  the  country  than  if  it  had  been  ex 
pended  abroad.  .  (Principles,  157.)  Another  distinguished  political 
economist  says — 


198  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

"Many  persons,  also,  perplexed  by  the  consideration  that  all  the 
commodities  which  are  exported  as  remittances  of  the  absentee's  in 
come  are  exports  for  which  no  return  is  obtained;  that  they  are  as 
much  lost  to  this  country  as  if  they  were  a  tribute  paid  to  a  foreign 
state,  or  even  as  if  they  were  periodically  thrown  into  the  sea.  This 
is  unquestionably  true;  but  it  must  be  recollected  that  whatever  is 
unproductively  consumed,  is,  by  the  very  terms  of  the  proposition, 
destroyed,  without  -producing  any  return." — Senior's  Political  Eco 
nomy,  160. 

This  view  is,  as  the  reader  will  see,  based  upon  the  idea  of  the 
total  destruction  of  the  commodities  consumed.  Were  it  even  cor 
rect,  it  would  still  follow  that  there  had  been  transferred  from 
Ireland  to  England  a  demand  for  services  of  a  thousand  kinds, 
tending  to  cause  a  rise  in  the  price  of  labour  in  the  one  and  a  fall  in 
the  other; — but  if  it  were  altogether  incorrect,  it  would  then  follow, 
necessarily,  that  the  loss  to  the  country  would  be  as  great  as  if  the 
remittances  were  "  a  tribute  paid  to  a  foreign  state,  or  even  as  if 
they  were  periodically  thrown  into  the  sea."  That  it  is  altogether 
incorrect  the  reader  may  readily  satisfy  himself.  Man  consumes 
much,  but  he  destroys  nothing.  In  eating  food  he  is  merely  acting 
as  a  machine  for  preparing  the  elements  of  which  it  is  composed 
for  future  production;  and  the  more  he  can  takeout  of  the  land  the 
more  he  can  return  to  it,  and  the  more  rapid  will  be  the  improve 
ment  in  the  productive  power  of  the  soil.  If  the  market  be  at 
hand,  he  can  take  hundreds  of  bushels  of  turnips,  carrots,  or  pota 
toes,  or  tons  of  hay,  from  an  acre  of  land,  and  he  can  vary  the  cha 
racter  of  his  culture  from  year  to  year,  and  the  more  he  borrows 
from  the  great  bank  the  more  he  can  repay  to  it,  the  more  he  can 
improve  his  mind  and  his  cultivation,  and  the  more  readily  he  can 
exchange  for  improved  machinery  by  aid  of  which  to  obtain  still 
increased  returns.  If,  however,  the  market  be  distant,  he  must 
raise  only  those  things  that  will  bear  carriage,  and  which  from  their 
small  yield  command  a  high  price,  and  thus  is  he  limited  in  his 
cultivation,  and  the  more  he  is  limited  the  more  rapidly  he  exhausts 
his  land,  the  less  is  his  power  to  obtain  roads,  to  have  association 
<vith  his  fellow-men,  to  obtain  books,  to  improve  his  mode  of 
thought,  to  maKe  roads,  or  to  purchase  machinery.  Such  is  the 
case  even  when  he  is  compelled  to  sell  and  buy  in  'distant  markets, 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  199 

but  still  worse  is  it  when,  as  in  the  case  of  the  rent  of  the  absentee, 
nothing  is  returned  to  the  land,  for  then  production  diminishes 
without  a  corresponding  diminution  of  the  rent,  and  the  poor  culti 
vator  is  more  and  more  thrown  upon  the  mercy  of  the  land-owner 
or  his  agent,  and  becomes,  as  we  see  to  have  been  the  case  in  Ja 
maica  and  India,  practically  a  slave.  This  state  of  things  has 
in  all  countries  been  followed  by  a  diminution  of  population  result 
ing  from  starvation  or  from  exportation  j  and  hence  it  is  that  we 
see  the  destruction  of  life  in  Ireland,  India,  and  the  West  Indies, 
while  from  the  two  former  vast  numbers  are  annually  exported, 
many  of  them  to  perish  in  the  new  countries  to  which  they  are 
driven.  Out  of  99,000  that  left  Ireland  |jgr  Canada  in  a  single 
year,  no  loss  than  13,000  perished  on  shipboard,  and  thousands 
died  afterward  of  disease,  starvation,  and  neglect;  and  thus  it  is 
that  we  have  the  horrors  of  "the  middle  passage"  repeated  in  our 
day.  It  is  the  slave  trade  of  the  last  century  reproduced  on  a 
grander  scale  and  on  a  new  theatre  of  action. 

AYe  are  told  of  the  principle  of  population  that  men  increase 
faster  than  food,  and,  for  evidence  that  such  must  always  be  the 
case,  are  pointed  to  the  fact  that  when  men  are  few  in  number 
they  always  cultivate  the  rich  soils,  and  then  food  is  abundant, 
but  as  population  increases  they  are  forced  to  resort  to  the  poor 
soils,  and  then  food  becomes  scarce.  That  the  contrary  of  all  this 
is  the  fact  is  shown  by  the  history  of  England,  France,  Italy, 
Greece,  India,  and  every  other  nation  of  the  world,  and  is  proved 
in  our  own  day  by  all  that  is  at  this  moment  being  done  in  this 
country.  It  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  Ireland  possesses  millions 
of  acres  of  the  most  fertile  soil  remaining  in  a  state  of  nature, 
and  so  likely  to  remain  until  she  shall  have  markets  for  their  pro 
duce  that  will  enable  their  owners  readily  to  exchange  turnips,  po 
tatoes,  cabbages,  and  hay,  for  cloth,  machinery,  and  MANURE. 

It  is  singular  that  all  the  political  economists  of  England  should 
so  entirely  have  overlooked  the  fact  that  man  is  a  mere  borrower 
from  the  earth,  and  that  when  he  does  not  pay  his  debts,  she  does  as 
do  all  other  creditors,  that  is,  she  expels  him  from  his  holding. 
England  makes  of  her  soil  a  grand  reservoir  for  the  waste  yielded 


200  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

by  all  the  sugar,  coffee,  wool,  indigo,  cotton  and  other  raw  commo 
dities  of  almost  half  the  world,  and  thus  does  she  raise  a  crop  that 
has  been  valued  at  five  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  or  five  times 
more  than  the  average  value  of  the  cotton  crop  produced  by  so 
manv  millions  of  people  in  this  country;  and  yet  so  important  is 
manure  that  she  imports  in  a  single  year  more  than  two  hundred 
thousand  tons  of  guano,  at  a  cost  of  almost  two  millions  of  pounds, 
and  thus  does  she  make  labour  productive  and  land  valuable. 
Nevertheless,  her  writers  teach  other  nations  that  the  true  mode  of 
becoming  rich  is  to  exhaust  the  land  by  sending  from  it  all  its 
products  in  their  rudest  state,  and  then,  when  the  people  of  Ireland 
attempt  to  follow  thJP  soil  which  they  have  sent  to  England,  the 
people  of  the  latter  are  told  by  Mr.  McCulloch  that 

"  The  unexampled  misery  of  the  Irish  people  is  directly  owing  to 
the  excessive  augmentation  of  their  numbers  ;  and  nothing  can  be  more 
perfectly  futile  than  to  expect  any  real  or  lasting  amendment  of  their 
situation  until  an  effectual  check  has  been  given  to  the  progress  of 
population.  It  is  obvious  too/'  he  continues,  "  that  the  low  and  de 
graded  condition  into  which  the  people  of  Ireland  are  now  sunk  is  the 
condition  to  which  every  people  must  be  reduced  whose  numbers  con 
tinue,  for  any  considerable  period,  to  increase  faster  than  the  means 
of  providing  for  their  comfortable  and  decent  subsistence." — Princi 
ples,  383. 

The  population  of  Ireland  did  increase  with  some  rapidity,  and 
the  reason  for  this  was  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  poverty  had  not 
yet  produced  that  demoralization  which  restricts  the  growth  of  num 
bers.  The  extraordinary  morality  of  the  women  of  Ireland  is  ad 
mitted  everywhere.  In  England  it  is  remarked  upon  by  poor-law 
commissioners,  and  here  it  is  a  fact  that  cannot  fail  to  command  the 
attention  of  the  most  superficial  observer.  How  it  is  at  home 
we  are  told  by  Sir  Francis  Head,  whose  statements  on  this  subject 
cannot  be  read  without  interest :  — 

"As  regards  the  women  of  Ireland,  their  native  modesty  cannot  fail 
to  attract  the  observation  of  any  stranger.  Their  dress  was  invariably 
decent,  generally  pleasing,  and  often  strikingly  picturesque.  Almost 
all  wore  wooller  petticoats,  dyed  by  themselves,  of  a  rich  madder 
colour,  between  crimson  and  scarlet.  Upon  their  shoulders,  and  occa 
sionally  fr  jm  their  heads,  hung,  in  a  variety  of  beautiful  folds,  some 
times  a-  plaid  of  red  and  green,  sometimes  a  cloak,  usually  dark  blue 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  201 

or  dingy  white.     Their  garments,  however,  like  those  of  the  men,  were 
occasionally  to  be  seen  in  tatters/' — P.  111). 

Anxious  to  be  fully  informed  on  the  subject,  the  traveller  took 
occasion  to  interrogate  various  police-officers  and  gentlemen,  and 
the  result  of  his  inquiries  will  be  seen  on  a  perusal  of  the  following 
questions  and  answers  : — 

Q.  "  How  long  have  you  been  on  duty  in  Galway  ?" 

A.  "Above  nine  years." 

Q.  "Have  you  much  crime  here?'' 

A.  "Very  little  ;  it  principally  consists  of  petty  larcenies." 

Q.  "Have  there  been  here  many  illegitimate  children?" 

A.  "  Scarcely  any.  During  the  whole  of  the  eight  years  I  have  been 
on  duty  here  I  have  not  known  of  an  illegitimate  child  being  reared  up 
in  any  family  in  the  town." 

Q.  "What  do  you  mean  by  being  reared  up ?" 

A.  "  I  mean  that,  being  acquainted  with  every  family  in  Galway,  I 
have  never  known  vof  a  child  of  that  description  being  born." — P.  208. 

Q.  "  How  long  have  you  been  on  duty  here  ?" 

A.  "  Only  six  months." 

Q.  "  During  that  time  have  you  known  of  any  instance  of  an  illegi 
timate  child  being  born  in  the  village  of  the  Claddagh  ?" 

A.  "  Not  only  have  I  never  known  of  such  a  case,  but  I  have  never 
heard  any  person  attribute  such  a  case  to  the  fisherwomen  of  Claddagh. 
I  was  on  duty  in  the  three  islands  of  Arran,  inhabited  almost  exclu 
sively  by  fishermen,  who  also  farm  potatoes,  and  I  never  heard  of  one 
of  their  women — who  are  remarkable  for  their  beauty — having  had  an 
illegitimate  child,  nor  did  I  ever  hear  it  attributed  to  them  ;  indeed,  I 
have  been  informed  by  Mr. ,  a  magistrate  who  has  lived  in  Gal 
way  for  eight  years,  and  has  been  on  temporary  duty  in  the  island  of 
Arran,  that  he  also  had  never  heard  there  of  a  case  of  that  nature." — 
P.  209. 

A,  "  I  have  been  here  better  than  two  years,  and  during  that  time  I 
have  never  known  of  any  wToman  of  Claddagh  having  had  an  illegiti 
mate  child — indeed,  I  have  never  even  heard  of  it." 

Q.  "  Have  you  ever  known  of  any  such  case  in  Galway  ?" 
A.  "  Oh,  I  think  there  have  been  some  cases  in  town.     Of  my  Own 
knowledge  I  cannot  say  so,  but  I  have  heard  of  it." — Ibid. 

Q.  "  How  long  have  you  been  in  charge  of  the  Claddagh  village  ?" 

A.  "  I  have  been  nine  years  here,  for  five  years  of  which  last  March 
I  have  been  in  charge  of  Claddagh." 

Q.  "During  that  time  has  there  been  an  illegitimate  child  born 
there  ?" 

A.  "No,  I  have  never  heard  of  it,  and  if  it  had  happened  I  should 
have  been  sure  to  have  heard  of  it,  as  they  wouldn't  have  allowed  her 
to  stop  in  the  village."— P.  210. 

The  reader  will  now  be  pleased  to  recollect  that  the  production 


2(J'-i  THE   SLAVE  TRADE, 

of  food,  flax,  cotton,  and  other  raw  commodities  requires  hard  la 
bour  and  exposure,  arid  it  is  for  such  labour  men  are  fitted — that 
the  conversion  of  food,  flax,  and  cotton  into  cloth  requires  little  ex 
ertion  and  is  unattended  with  exposure,  and  is  therefore  especially 
fitted  for  the  weaker  sex — and  that  when  the  work  of  conversion  is 
monopolized  by  people  who  live  at  a  distance  from  the  place  of 
production,  the  woman  and  the  child  must  be  driven  to  the  labour  of 
the  field ;  and  therefore  it  is  that  we  see  the  women  and  the  children 
of  Jamaica  and  Carolina,  of  Portugal  and  Turkey,  of  India  and 
of  Ireland,  compelled  to  remain  idle  or  to  cultivate  the  land,  be 
cause  of  the  existence  of  a  system  which  denies  to  all  places  in  the 
world  but  one  the  power  to  bring  the  consumer  to  the  side  of  the 
producer.  It  was  time  for  woman  to  take  up  the  cause  of  her  sex, 
and  it  may  be  hoped  that  she  will  prosecute  the  inquiry  into  the 
causes  of  the  demoralization  and  degradation  of  the  women  of  so 
large  a  portion  of  the  world,  until  she  shall  succeed  in  extirpating 
the  system  so  long  since  denounced  by  the  greatest  of  all  econo 
mists,  as  "a  manifest  violation  of  the  most  sacred  rights  of  man 
[and  woman]  kind." 


SCOTLAND. 

CENTRALIZATION  tends  everywhere  to  the  exhaustion  of  the  land, 
and  to  its  consolidation  in  fewer  hands,  and  with  every  step  in 
this  direction  man  becomes  less  and  less  free  to  determine  for  whom 
he  will  work  and  what  shall  be  his  reward.  That  such  has  been 
the  tendency  in  Jamaica,  India,  and  Ireland,  has  been  shown,  and 
it  is  now  proposed  to  show  that  the  same  tendency  exists  in  Scotland, 
the  Northern  part  of  which  has  become  exclusively  agricultural  aa 
even  its  home  manufactures  have  passed  away,  and  must  look  to  a 
distance  for  a  market  for  all  its  products,  involving,  of  course, 
a  necessity  for  exhausting  the  land. 

The  Highland  tacksman,  originally  co-proprietor  of  the  land  of 
the  clan,  became  at  first  vassal,  then  hereditary  tenant,  then  tenant 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  203 

at  will,  and  tlius  the  property  in  land  passed  from  the  many  into 
the  hands  of  the  few,  who  have  not  hesitated  to  avail  themselves 
of  the  power  so  obtained.  The  payment  of  money  rents  was 
claimed  by  them  eighty  years  since,  but  the  amount  was  very 
small,  as  is  shown  by  the  following  passage  from  a  work  of  that 
date : —  ' 

"  The  rent  of  these  lands  is  very  trifling  compared  to  their  extent, 
but  compared  to  the  number  of  mouths  which  a  farm  maintains',  it  will 
perhaps  be  found  that  a  plot  of  land  in  the  highlands  of  Scotland  feeds 
ten  times  more  people  than  a  farm  of  the  same  extent  in  the  richest 
provinces." — Stewart's  Political  Economy,  vol.  i.  chap.  xvi. 

Of  some  of  the  proceedings  of  the  present  century  the  following 
sketch  is  furnished  by  a  recent  English  writer  : — 

"  Even  in  the  beginning  of  the  19th  century  the  rental  imposts  were 
very  small,  as  is  shown  by  the  work  of  Mr.  Lock,  (1820,)  the  steward 
of  the  Countess  of  Sutherland,  who  directed  the  improvements  on  her 
estates.  He  gives  for  instance  the  rental  of  the  Kintradawell  estate 
for  1811,  from  which  it  appears  that  up  to  then,  every  family  was  oblig 
ed  to  pay  a  yearly  impost  of  a  few  shillings  in  money,  a  few  fowls, 
and  some  days'  work,  at  the  highest. 

"  It  was  only  after  1811  that  the  ultimate  and  real  usurpation  was 
enacted,  the  forcible  transformation  of  clan-property  into  the  private 
property,  in  the  modern  sense,  of  the  chief.  The  person  who  stood 
at  the  head  of  this  economical  revolution,  was  the  Countess  of  Suther 
land  and  Marchioness  of  Stafford. 

"  Let  us  first  state  that  the  ancestors  of  the  marchioness  were  the 
'  great  men'  of  the  most  northern  part  of  Scotland,  of  very  near 
three-quarters  of  Sutherlandshire.  This  county  is  more  extensive 
than  many  French  departments  or  small  German  principalities. 
When  the  Countess  of  Sutherland  inherited  these  estates,  which  she 
afterward  brought  to  her  husband,  the  Marquis  of  Stafford,  afterward 
Duke  of  Sutherland,  the  population  of  them  was  already  reduced  to 
15,000.  The  countess  resolved  upon  a  radical  economical  reform,  and 
determined  upon  transforming  the  whole  tract  of  country  into  sheep- 
walks.  From  1814  to  _  1820,  these  15,000  inhabitants,  about  3000 
families,  were  systematically  expelled  and  exterminated.  All  their 
villages  were  demolished  and  burned  down,  and  all  their  fields  con 
verted  into  pasturage.  British  soldiers  were  commanded  for  this  exe 
cution,  and  came  to  blows  with  the  natives.  An  old  woman  refusing 
to  quit  her  hut,  was  burned  in  the  flames  of  it.  Thus  the  countess 
appropriated  to  herself  seven  hundred  and  ninety-four  thousand  acres 
of  land,  which  from  time  immemorial  had  belonged  to  the  clan.  She 
allotted  to  the  expelled  natives  abont  six  thousand  acres — two  acres  per 
family.  These  six  thousand  acres  had  been  lying  waste  until  then, 
and  brought  no  revenue  to  the  proprietors.  The  countess  was  gene- 
n  us  enough  to  sell  the  acre  at  2s.  6d.  on  an  average,  to  the  clan-men 


204  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

who  for  centuries  past  had  shed  their  blood  for  her  family.  The 
whole  of  the  unrightfully  appropriated  clan-land  she  divided  into 
twenty-nine  large  sheep-farms,  each  of  them  inhabited  by  one  single 
family,  mostly  English  farm-labourers ;  and  in  1821  the  15,000  Gaels 
had  already  been  superseded  by  131,000  sheep. 

"  A  portion  of  the  aborigines  had  been  thrown  upon  the  sea-shore, 
and  attempted  to  live  by  fishing.  They  became  amphibious,  and,  as 
an  English,  author  says,  lived  half  on  land  and  half  on  water,  and 
after  all  did  not  half  live  upon  both." 

Throughout  the  North  of  Scotland  the  tenants  of  the  small 
grazing  farms  into  which  the  Highland  counties  had  been  divided, 
have  been  ousted  for  the  purpose  of  creating  sheep-walks,  and  to 
such  an  extent  has  this  been  carried,  that  where  once,  and  at  no 
distant  period,  were  numerous  black-cattle  farms,  not  an  inhabit 
ant  is  now  to  be  seen  for  many  miles.  *  The  work,  too,  is  still 
going  on.  ."The  example  of  Sutherland,"  says  Mr.  Thornton,  f 
"  is  imitated  in  the  neighbouring  counties." 

The  misery  of  these  poor  people  is  thus  described : — 

"  Hinds  engaged  by  the  year  are  seldom  paid  more  than  two-thirds 
of  what  they  would  receive  in  the  South,  and  few  of  them  are  fortu 
nate  enough  to  obtain  regular  employment.  Farm-servants,  however, 
form  only  a  small  proportion  of  the  peasantry,  a  much  greater  num 
ber  being  crofters,  or  tenants  of  small  pieces  of  ground,  from  which 
they  derive  almost  their  whole  subsistence.  Most  of  them  live  very 
miserably.  The  soil  is  so  poor,  and  rents  in  some  instances  so  exorbi 
tant,  that  occupiers  of  four  or  five  acres  can  do  little  more  than  main 
tain  themselves,  yet  it  is  their  aid  alone  that  saves  their  still  poorer 
brethren  from  starvation.  This  is  true  even  of  Sutherland,  which  is 
commonly  represented  as  a  highly  improved  county,  and  in  which  a 
signal  change  for  the  better  is  said  to  have  taken  place  in  the  charac 
ter  and  habits  of  the  people.  |  Recent  inquiry  has  discovered  that 
even  there,  in  districts  once  famous  for  fine  men  and  gallant  soldiers, 
the  inhabitants  have  degenerated  into  a  meagre  and  stunted  race.  In 
the  healthiest  situations,  on  hillsides  fronting  the  sea,  the  faces  of 
their  famished  children  are  as  thin  and  pale  as  they  could  be  in  the 
foul  atmosphere  of  a  London  alley.  §  Still  more  deplorable  are  the 
scenes  exhibited  in  the  Western  Highlands,  especially  on  the  coasts 
and  in  the  adjoining  islands.  A  large  population  has  there  been  as 
sembled,  so  ill  provided  with  any  means  of  support,  that  during  part 
of  almost  every  year  from  45,000  to  80,000 1|  of  them  are  in  a  state  of 

*  Thornton  on  Over-population,  248.  f  Ibid.  250. 

J  Me  Culloch,  Stat.  Acct.  of  British  Empire,  vol.  1.  315. 
$  Times  Newspaper,  June  7th,  1844. 
||  Report  of  Highland  Emigration  Committee,  1841. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  205 

destitution,  and  entirely  dependent  upon  charity.  Many  of  the  heads 
of  families  hold  crofts  from  four  to  seven  acres  in  extent,  but  these, 
notwithstanding  their  small  size,  and  the  extreme  barrenness  of  the 
soil,  have  often  two,  three,  and  sometimes  even  four  families  upon 
them.  One  estate  in  the  Hebrides,  the  nominal  rent  of  which  is  only 
£5200  a  year,  is  divided  into  1108  crofts,  and  is  supposed  «to  have 
more  than  8300  persons  living  upon  it.  In  another  instance  a  rental 
of  £1814  is  payable  (for  little  is  really  paid)  by  365  crofters,  and  the 
whole  population  of  the  estate  is  estimated  at  more  than  2300.  In 
Cromarty,  1500  persons  are  settled  upon  an  estate  let  nominally  fur 
£750,  but  paying  not  more  than  half  that  sum." — Thornton,  74. 

"  Of  course,  they  live  most  wretchedly.  Potatoes  are  the  usual  food, 
for  oatmeal  is  considered  a  luxury,  to  be  reserved  for  high  days  and 
holidays,  but  even  potatoes  are  not  raised  in  sufficient  abundance. 
The  year's  stock  is  generally  exhausted  before  the  succeeding  crop  is 
ripe,  and  the  poor  are  then  often  in  a  most  desperate  condition,  for  the 
poor-law  is  a  dead  letter  in  the  North  of  Scotland,  and  the  want  of  a 
legal  provision  for  the  necessitous  is  but  ill  supplied  by  the  spontane 
ous  contributions  of  the  land-owners. — Ibid.  76. 

At  the  moment  of  writing  this,  the  journals  of  the  day  furnish 
information  that  famine  prevails  in  the  Hebrides,  and  that  "  in 
the  Isle  of  Skye  alone  there  are  10,000  able-bodied  persons  at 
this  time  without  work,  without  food,  and  without  credit." 

The  condition  of  these  poor  people  would  certainly  be  much 
improved  could  they  find  some  indulgent  master  who  would  pur 
chase  them  at  such  prices  as  would  make  it  to  his  interest  to  feed, 
clothe,  and  lodge  them  well  in  return  for  their  labour. 

In  the  days  of  Adam  Smith  about  one-fifth  of  the  surface  of 
Scotland  was  supposed  to  be  entailed,  and  he  saw  the  disadvan 
tages  of  the  system  to  be  so  great  that  he  denounced  the  system  as 
being  u  founded  upon  the  most  absurd  of  all  suppositions — the 
supposition  that  every  successive  generation  of  men  have  not  an 
equal  right  to  the  earth  and  all  that  it  possesses;  but  that  the 
property  of  the  present  generation  should  be  retained  and  regu 
lated  according  to  the  fancy  of  those  who  died  perhaps  five  hundred 
years  ago."  Instead  of  changing  the  system,  and  doing  that 
which  might  tend  to  the  establishment  of  greater  freedom  of  trade 
in  land,  the  movement  has  been  in  a  contrary  direction,  and  to 
such  an  extent  that  one-half  of  Scotland  is  now  supposed  to  be 
entailed ;  and  yet,  singularly  enough,  this  is  the  system  advocated 
by*Ir.  McCulloch,  a  follower  in  the  foot-steps  of  Adam  Smith,  as 

13 


206  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

being  the  one  calculated  "  to  render  all  classes  more  industrious,  and 
to  augment  at  the  same  time  the  mass  of  wealth  and  the  scale  of 
enjoyment." 

The  effects  of  the  system  are  seen  in  the  enormous  rents  con 
tracted  to  be  paid  for  the  use  of  small  pieces  of  land  at  a  distance 
from  market,  the  failure  in  the  payment  of  which  makes  the  poor 
cultivator  a  mere  slave  to  the  proprietor.  How  the  latter  use 
their  power,  may  be  seen  by  the  following  extract  from  a  Canadian 
journal  of  1851  : — 

"  A  Colonel ,  the  owner  of  estates  in  South  Uist  and  Barra,  in 

the  highlands  of  Scotland,  has  sent  off  over  1100  destitute  tenants  and 
cotters  under  the  most  cruel  and  delusive  temptations  ;  assuring  them 
that  they  would  be  taken  care  of  immediately  on  their  arrival  at  Que 
bec  by  the  emigrant  agent,  receive  a  free  passage  to  Upper  Canada, 
where  they  would  be  provided  with  work  by  the  government  agents, 
and  receive  grants  of  land  on  certain  imaginary  conditions.  Seventy- 
one  of  the  last  cargo  of  four  hundred  and  fifty  have  signed  a  state 
ment  that  some  of  them  fled  to  the  mountains  when  an  attempt  was 
made  to  force  them  to  emigrate.  '  Whereupon/  they  add,  '  Mr.  Fle 
ming  gave  orders  to  a  policeman,  who  was  accompanied  by  the  ground 
officer  of  the  estate  in  Barra,  and  some  constables,  to  pursue  the 
people  who  had  run  away  among  the  mountains,  which  they  did,  and 
succeeded  in  capturing  about  twenty  from  the  mountains  and  from 
other  islands  in  the  neighbourhood  ;  but  ( nly  came  with  the  officers  on 
an  attempt  being  made  to  handcuff  them,  and  that  some  who  ran 
away  were  not  brought  back  ;  in  consequence  of  which  four  families, 
at  least,  have  been  divided,  some  having  come  in  the  ships  to  Quebec, 
while  other  members  of  the  same  families  are  left  in  the  highlands.'  " 

"  On  board  the  Conrad  and  the  Birman  were  518  persons  from  Mull 

and  Tyree,  sent  out  by  his  grace  the  Duke  of ,  who  provided  them 

with  a  free  passage  to  Montreal,  where  on  arrival  they  presented  the 
same  appearance  of  destitution  as  those  from  South  Uist,  sent  out  by 
Colonel ,  that  is,  '  entirely  destitute  of  money  and  provisions/  " 

Numbers  of  these  people  perished,  as  we  are  told,  of  disease  and 
want  of  food  in  the  winter  which  followed  their  arrival  in  Canada, 
and  that  such  would  have  been  the  case  might  naturally  have  been 
anticipated  by  those  who  exported  them. 

The  wretched  cotters  who  are  being  everywhere  expelled  from  the 
land  are  forced  to  take  refuge  in  cities  and  towns,  precisely  as  we 
see  now  to  be  the  case  in  Ireland.  "In  Glasgow,"  says  Mr 
Thornton — 

"  There  are  nearly  30,000  poor  Highlanders,  most  of  them  living  in 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  207 

a  state  of  misery,  which  shows  how  dreadful  must  have  been  the  pri 
vations  to  which  such  misery  is  preferred.  Such  of  them  as  are  able- 
bodied  obtain  employment  without  much  difficulty,  and  may  not  per 
haps,  have  much  reason  to  complain  of  deficiency  of  the  first  requisites 
of  life ;  but  the  quarter  they  inhabit  is  described  as  enclosing  a  larger 
amount  of  filth,  crime,  misery,  and  disease,  than  could  have  been  sup- 
pjsed  to  exist  in  one  spot  in  any  civilized  country.  It  consists  of  long 
lanes  called  '  wynds,'  so  narrow  that  a  cart  could  scarcely  pass  through 
them,  opening  upon  '  closes,'  or  courts,  about  15  or  20  feet  square, 
round  which  the  houses,  mostly  three  stories  high,  are  built,  and  in 
the  centre  of  which  is  a  dunghill.  The  houses  are  occupied  indiscrimi 
nately  by  labourers  of  the  lowest  class,  thieves,  and  prostitutes,  and 
every  apartment  is  filled  with  a  promiscuous  crowd  of  men  and  women, 
all  in  the  most  revolting  state  of  filth.  Amid  such  scenes  and  such 
companions  as  these,  thousands  of  the  most  intelligent  of  the  High 
landers  are  content  to  take  refuge,  for  it  is  precisely  those  who  are 
best  educated  and  best  informed  that  are  most  impatient  of  the  penury 
they  have  to  endure  at  home. 

"  The  inhabitants  of  the  Glasgow  wynds  and  closes  may  be  likened 
to  those  of  the  Liverpool  cellars,  or  to  those  of  the  worst  parts  of 
Leeds,  St.  Giles's,  and  Bethnal  Green,  in  London;  and  every  other  class 
of  the  Scottish  urban  labouring  population  may  likewise  be  delineated 
with  the  same  touches  (more  darkened,  however,)  which  have  been 
used  in  describing  the  corresponding  class  in  English  towns.  Manu 
facturing  operatives  are  in  pretty  much  the  same  position  in  both 
countries.  Those  of  Scotland  shared  even  more  largely  than  their 
Southern  brethren  in  the  distress  of  1840-2,  when  Paisley  in  particular 
exhibited  scenes  of  wo  far  surpassing  any  thing  that  has  been  related 
of  Bolton  or  Stockport."— P.  77. 

The  extent  to  which  these  poor  people  have  been  driven  from 
the  land  may  be  judged  by  the  following  statement  of  population 
and  house-accommodation  : — 

Population.  Inhabited  houses.     Persons  to  a  house. 

1841 2,628,957 503,357 5.22 

1851 2,870,784 366,650 7.83 

Intemperance  and  immorality  keep  pace  with  the  decline  in  the 
power  of  men  over  their  own  actions,  as  is  shown  in  the  following 
statement  of  the  consumption  of  British  spirits,  under  circumstances 
almost  precisely  similar  as  regards  the  amount  of  duty : — 

Duty.  Gallons. 

1802 3.10J 1,158,558 

1831 3.4  5,700,689 

1841 3.8   5,989,905 

1851 3.8   6,830.710 


208  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

In  1801  the  population  was  1,599,068,  and  since  that  time  it 
has  increased  eighty  per  cent.,  whereas  the  consumption  of  spirits 
has  grown  almost  six  hundred  per  cent. ! 

The  poor  people  who  are  expelled  from  the  land  cannot  be  sold. 
The  hammer  of  the  auctioneer  cannot  be  allowed  to  separate  parents 
from  children,  or  husbands  from  wives,  but  poverty,  drunkenness, 
and  prostitution  produce  a  similar  effect,  and  in  a  form  even  more 
deplorable.  In  the  five  years  preceding  1840,  every  fifth  person 
in  Glasgow  had  been  attacked  by  fever,  and  the  deaths  therefrom 
amounted  to  almost  five  thousand. 

It  is  impossible  to  study  the  condition  of  this  portion  of  the 
United  Kingdom  without  arriving  at  the  conclusion  that  society  is 
rapidly  being  divided  into  the  very  rich  and  the  very  poor,  and 
that  the  latter  are  steadily  declining  in  their  power  of  self-govern 
ment,  and  becoming  more  and  more  slaves  to  the  former.  Cen 
tralization  tends  here,  as  everywhere,  to  absenteeism,  and  "  ab 
senteeism,"  says  Dr.  Forbes  of  Glasgow* — 

"  Is  in  its  results  everywhere  the  same.  All  the  transactions  and 
communications  between  the  richer  and  the  poorer  classes,  have  thus 
(substituted  for  them  the  sternness  of  official  agency,  in  the  room  of 
that  kind  and  generous  treatment  which,  let  them  meet  unrestrained, 
the  more  prosperous  children  of  the  same  parent  would  in  almost  every 
case  pay  to  their  less  fortunate  brothers.  *  *  *  Where  the  power 
of  sympathy  has  been  altogether  or  nearly  abolished  among  the  dif 
ferent  ranks  of  society,  one  of  the  first  effects  appears  in  a  yawning 
and  ever-widening  gulf  of  poverty  which  gathers  round  its  founda 
tions.  As  the  lofty  shore  indicates  the  depth  of  the  surrounding  ocean, 
the  proud  pinnacles  of  wealth  in  society  are  the  indices  of  a  corre 
sponding  depression  among  the  humbler  ranks.  The  greatest  misery  of 
man  is  ever  the  adjunct  of  his  proudest  splendour." 

Such  are  the  results  everywhere  of  that  system  which  looks  to 
converting  England  into  a  great  workshop  and  confining  the  people 
of  all  other  nations  to  the  labours  of  the  field.  In  Jamaica,  it 
annihilated  three-fifths  of  all  the  negroes  imported,  and  it  is  now 
rapidly  driving  the  remainder  into  barbarism  and  ultimately  to 
annihilation.  In  the  Southern  States,  it  causes  the  export  of  men, 

*  Lectures  on  the  Social  and  Moral  Condition  of  the  People,  by  various  Minis 
ters  of  the  Gospel.  Glasgow. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  209 

women,  and  children,  and  the  breaking  up  of  families.  In  India,  it 
has  caused  famines  and  pestilences,  and  is  now  establishing  the 
slave  trade  in  a  new  form.  In  Ireland,  it  has  in  half  a  century 
carried  the  people  back  to  a  condition  worthy  only  of  the  darkest 
part  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  is  now  extirpating  them  from  the  land 
of  their  fathers.  In  Scotland,  it  is  rapidly  dividing  the  population 
into  two  parts — the  master  on  one  hand,  and  the  slave  on  the  other. 
How  it  has  operated,  and  is  now  operating,  in  England  itself,  we 
may  now  examine. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

HOW    SLAVERY   GROWS   IN   ENGLAND. 

THE  Roman  people  sought  to  centralize  within  their  walls  the 
power  of  governing  and  taxing  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  and  to 
a  great  extent  they  succeeded;  but  in  the  effort  to  acquire  power 
over  others  they  lost  all  power  over  themselves.  As  the  city  grew 
in  size  and  as  its  great  men  became  greater,  the  proportions  of  the 
people  everywhere  became  less.  The  freemen  of  the  Campagna 
had  almost  disappeared  even  in  the  days  of  the  elder  Scipio,  and 
their  humble  habitations  had  given  way  to  palaces,  the  centre  of 
great  estates,  cultivated  by  slaves.  Step  by  step  with  the  increase 
of  power  abroad  came  increased  consolidation  of  the  land  at  home, 
and  as  the  people  were  more  and  more  driven  from  the  soil  the 
city  grew  in  numbers  and  magnificence,  and  in  the  poverty  and 
rapacity  of  its  inhabitants.  The  populace  needed  to  be  fed,  and 
that  they  might  be  so  there  was  established  a  great  system  of  poor- 
laws,  carried  into  effect  by  aid  of  the  taxation  of  distant  provinces , 
at  whose  expense  they  were  both  fed  and  entertained.  They  de 
manded  cheap  food,  and  they  obtained  their  desires  at  the  cost  of 
the  cultivators,  abroad  and  at  home,  who  became  more  and  rnora 

18* 


210 

enslaved  as  Rome  itself  was  more  cheaply  supplied.  Desires  grew 
with  their  indulgence,  and  the  greater  the  facility  for  living  with 
out  labour,  the  greater  beeame  the  necessity  for  seeking  "  new 
markets"  in  which  to  exercise  their  powers  of  appropriation,  and 
the  more  extensive  became  the  domain  of  slavery.  Bankers  and 
middlemen  grew  more  and  more  in  power,  and  while  the  wealth  of 
Crassus  enabled  him  to  obtain  the  control  of  the  East,  enormous 
loans  gave  to  Caesar  the  command  of  the  West,  leaving  to  Pompey 
and  his  moneyed  friends  the  power  to  tax  the  centre  and  the  South. 
Next,  Augustus  finds  the  city  of  brick  and  leaves  it  of  marble; 
and  Herodes  Atticus  appears  upon  the  stage  sole  improver,  and 
almost  sole  owner,  in  Attica,  once  so  free,  while  bankers  and  no 
bles  accumulate  enormous  possessions  in  Africa,  Gaul,  and  Britain, 
and  the  greater  the  extent  of  absentee  ownership  the  greater 
becomes  the  wretchedness  and  the  crime  of  the  pauper  mob  of 
Borne.  Still  onward  the  city  grows,  absorbing  the  wealth  of  the 
world,  and  with  it  grow  the  poverty,  slavery,  and  rapacity  of  the 
people,  the  exhaustion  of  provinces,  and  the  avarice  and  tyran 
ny  of  rulers  and  magistrates,  until  at  length  the  empire,  rotten  at 
the  heart,  becomes  the  prey  of  barbarians,  and  all  become  slaves 
alike, — thus  furnishing  proof  conclusive  that  the  community  which 
desires  to  command  respect  for  its  own  rights  must  practise  respect 
for  those  of  others;  or  in  other  words,  must  adopt  as  its  motto  the 
great  lesson  which  lies  at  the  base  of  all  Christianity — "Do  unto 
others  as  ye  would  that  they  should  do  unto  you." 

A  survey  of  the  British  Empire  at  the  present  moment  presents 
to  view  some  features  so  strongly  resembling  those  observed  in 
ancient  Rome  as  to  warrant  calling  the  attention  of  the  reader  to 
their  careful  observation.  Like  Rome,  England  has  desired  to 
establish  political  centralization  by  aid  of  fleets  and  armies,  but  to 
this  she  has  added  commercial  centralization,  far  more  destructive 
in  its  effects,  and  far  more  rapid  in  its  operation.  Rome  was  con 
tent  that  her  subjects  should  occupy  themselves  as  they  pleased, 
either  in  the  fields  or  in  the  factories,  provided  only  that  they  paid 
their  taxes.  England,  on  the  contrary,  has  sought  to  restrict  her 
subjects  and  the  people  of  the  world  in  their  modes  of  employment ; 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  211 

and  this  she  has  done  with  a  view  to  compel  them  to  make  all  their 
exchanges  in  her  single  market,  leaving  to  her  to  fix  the  prices  of 
all  she  bought  and  all  she  sold,  thus  taxing  them  at  her  discretion 
in  both  time  and  money.  She  has  sought  to  compel  all  other 
nations  to  follow  the  plough,  leaving  to  her  the  loom  and  the 
anvil,  and  thus  to  render  it  necessary  that  they  should  bring  to 
her  all  their  products  in  the  rudest  form,  at  great  cost  of  transporta 
tion,  and  total  loss  of  the  manure  yielded  by  them,  thus  exhausting 
their  soil  and  themselves ;  and  the  consequences  of  this  are  seen  in 
the  ruin,  depopulation,  and  slavery  of  the  West  Indies,  Ireland, 
India,  Portugal,  Turkey,  and  other  countries  that  have  been  par 
tially  or  wholly  subjected  to  her  dominion.  Hence  it  is  that  she 
is  seen  to  be  everywhere  seeking  "  new  markets."  Bengal  having 
been  in  a  great  degree  exhausted,  it  became  necessary  to  annex  the 
North-west  provinces,  and  thence  we  find  her  stretching  out  her 
hand  at  one  moment  to  seize  on  Afghanistan,  at  another  to  force 
the  Chinese  into  permitting  her  to  smuggle  opium,  and  at  a  third 
to  expel  the  Sikhs  and  occupy  the  Punjab,  as  preliminary  to  this 
invasion  and  subjection  of  the  Burman  Empire.  She  needs,  and 
must  have  new  markets,  as  Home  needed  new  provinces,  and  for 
the  same  reason,  the  exhaustion  of  the  old  ones.  She  rejoices 
with  great  joy  at  the  creation  of  a  new  market  in  Australia,  and 
looks  with  a  longing  eye  on  the  Empire  of  Japan,  whose  prosper 
ous  people,  under  a  peaceful  government,  prefer  to  avoid  entering 
on  the  same  course  of  action  that  has  resulted  in  the  reduction  of 
the  wealthy  and  powerful  Hindostan  to  its  present  distressed  con 
dition. 

It  was  against  this  system  that  Adam  Smith  cautioned  his  coun 
trymen,  as  not  only  a  violation  of  a  the  most  sacred  rights"  of 
man,  but  as  leading  inevitably  to  consequences  in  the  highest 
degree  injurious  to  themselves,  in  depreciating  the  value  of  both 
labour  and  capital.  Up  to  his  time,  however,  it  had  been  carried 
out  in  a  very  small  degree.  The  colonies  were  then  few  in  num 
ber,  but  those  were  heavily  taxed,  as  has  been  shown  in  the 
candid  admission  of  Joshua  Gee,  that  the  colonists  carried  homo 
but  one-fourth  of  the  value  of  the  commodities  they  brought  to 


212  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

the  great  market.*  The  system  was  then  only  in  its  infancy. 
In  India,  the  Company  had  but  then  first  obtained  the  concession 
of  a  right  to  act  in  the  capacity  of  tax-gatherer  for  Bengal.  On 
this  continent,  the  right  thus  to  tax  the  colonists  was  seriously 
contested,  and  The  Wealth  of  Nations  had  not  been  long  before  the 
world  before  it  came  to  be  explicitly  and  successfully  denied. 
The  tendency  of  the  system  was,  however,  so  obvious  to  its  author, 
that  he  desired  to  warn  his  countrymen  against  the  effort  to  build 
up  a  colonies  of  customers,"  as  unworthy  of  a  great  people,  and 
worthy  only  of  "  a  nation  of  shopkeepers," — and  happy  for  them 
would  it  have  been  had  his  advice  been  taken.  It  was  not.  From 
that  day  to  the  present,  every  step  has  been  in  the  direction  against 
which  he  cautioned  them,  as  was  shown  in  a  former  chapter,  and 
from  year  to  year  the  people  of  England  have  become  more  and 
more  the  mere  traders  in  the  products  of  the  labours  of  other  men, 
and  more  and  more  compelled  to  seek  "  new  markets,"  as  did  the 
Roman  people, — the  only  difference  being  that  in  every  case  the 
exhaustion  has  been  accomplished  with  a  rapidity  unparalleled  in 
the  annals  of  Rome,  or  of  the  world.  A  century  since,  India  was 
rich,  and  now  her  government,  collecting  annually  one-fifth  of  the 
whole  value  of  the  land,  is  sustained  only  by  means  of  a  monopoly 
of  the  power  to  poison  and  enslave  the  Chinese  by  means  of 
a  vile  drug,  and  the  poor  Hindoo  is  forced  to  seek  for  food  in  the 
swamps  of  Jamaica  and  G-uiana.  Half  a  century  since,  Ireland 
had  a  highly  cultivated  society,  with  a  press  that  sent  forth  large 
editions  of  the  most  valuable  and  expensive  books  produced  in 
England,  and  now  her  people  are  decimated  by  famine  and  pesti 
lence.  Twenty  years  since,  there  existed  some  little  prospect  that 
the  poor  negroes  of  Jamaica  and  Guiana  might  at  some  future 
time  become  civilized,  but  that  hope  has  passed  away,  as  has  the 
value  of  the  land  upon  which  they  have  been  employed.  What 
has  been  the  effect  of  this  course  of  policy  upon  the  condition  of 
the  people  of  England  we  may  now  inquire. 

In  the  days  of  Adam  Smith  it  was  estimated  that  there  were  in 

*  See  page  71,  ante. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  213 

that  country  220,000  owners  of  land,  and  as  a  necessary  conse 
quence  of  this  extensive  ownership  of  property,  there  was  a  very  de 
cided  tendency  toward  an  increase  in  the  freedom  of  man,  as  shown 
in  the  efforts  made  but  a  few  years  later  for  obtaining  a  reform 
in  various  matters  of  government.  The  French  Revolution  came, 
however,  and  now  the  doctrine  of  "  ships,  colonies,  and  commerce" 
had  much  to  do  in  bringing  about  a  state  of  war,  during  the 
whole  of  which  England  enjoyed  almost  a  monopoly  of  the  trade 
of  the  world.  Having  all  the  woollen  and  cotton  machinery,  and 
almost  all  the  machinery  for  the  production  of  iron,  she  was  en 
abled  to  buy  produce  and  sell  manufactures  at  her  own  prices;  and 
thus  were  the  already  wealthy  greatly  enriched.  The  poor-houses 
were,  however,  everywhere  filled  with  starving  labourers,  and  so 
rapidly  did  their  number  increase  that  it  became  at  length  necessary 
to  give  to  the  statute  of  Elizabeth  a  new  and  enlarged  construction; 
and  here  do  we  find  another  coincidence  in  the  working  of  Roman 
and  British  centralization.  A  still  further  one  will  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  precisely  as  the  labourer  was  losing  all  power  of  self- 
government,  the  little  proprietors  of  land  disappeared,  to  be  re 
placed  by  day-labourers. 

The  peace,  however  came,  and  with  it  a  desire  on  the  part  of 
other  nations  to  supply  themselves  with  cloth,  iron,  and  other 
manufactured  commodities ;  and  to  enable  them  to  carry  into  effect 
their  wishes,  many  of  them  imposed  duties  having  for  their  ob 
ject  the  bringing  together  of  the  plough  and  the  loom,  the  ham 
mer  and  the  harrow.  This  produced,  of  course,  a  necessity  for 
new  exertions  to  underwork  those  nations,  leading  to  constant  im 
provements  of  machinery,  each  tending  to  enable  the  capitalist  more 
and  more  to  accumulate  fortune  and  purchase  land,  the  consolida 
tion  of  which  has  been  continued  until  at  length  it  has  resulted  in  tin- 
fact,  that  in  place  of  the  220,000  English  land-owners  of  the  days 
of  Adam  Smith,  there  now  exist  but  30,000,  while  all  the  land  of 
Scotland  has,  as  is  stated,  accumulated  in  the  hands  ort)000  per 
sons. 

As  the  190,000  proprietors  came  by  degrees  to  be  represented 
by  day-labourers,  pauperism  increased,  and  the  labourer  became 


214  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

from  year  to  year  more  enslaved,  and  more  dependent  for  exist 
ence  upon  the  favours  of  farmers,  parish  beadles,  and  constables, 
until  at  length  a  reform  of  the  system  having  become  absolutely 
necessary,  it  was  undertaken.  Instead,  however,  of  inquiring 
into  the  causes  of  this  increased  dependence  with  a  view  to 
their  abolition,  it  was  determined  to  abolish  the  relief  that  they 
had  rendered  necessary,  and  hence  the  existence  of  the  new  poor- 
law.  By  virtue  of  its  provisions,  inability  to  obtain  food  became  a 
crime  punishable  by  the  separation  of  husbands  from  wives  and 
parents  from  children;  and  thus  we  see  that  in  the  last  twenty 
years  English  legislation  has  tended  greatly  in  the  same  direction 
with  the  domestic  slave  trade  of  this  country. 

Consolidation  of  the  land  drove  the  labourers  from  the  cultiva 
tion  of  the  soil,  while  improved  machinery  tended  constantly  to 
drive  them  out  from  the  factory,  and  thus  were  the  poor  made 
poorer  and  weaker,  as  the  rich  grew  richer  and  stronger.  Ireland, 
too,  contributed  largely  to  the  same  result.  As  the  Act  of  Union 
gradually  closed  her  factories  and  drove  her  people  to  cultivation 
as  the  sole  means  of  supporting  life,  they  found  themselves,  like 
the  Italians  of  olden  time,  forced  to  emigrate  to  the  place  where  taxes 
were  distributed,  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  wages,  and  their  compe 
tition  threw  the  English  labourer  still  more  in  the  hands  of  the 
capitalist.  From  year  to  year  the  small  proprietor  was  seen  to 
pass  into  the  condition  of  a  day-labourer,  and  the  small  em 
ploying  mechanic  or  tradesman  to  pass  into  a  receiver  of  wages, 
and  thus  did  the  whole  people  tend  more  and  more  to  become 
divided  into  two  great  classes,  separated  from  each  other  by  an 
impassable  gulf,  the  very  rich  and  the  very  poor,  the  master  and 
the  slave. 

As  England  became  more  and  more  flooded  with  the  wretched 
people  of  the  sister  island,  driven  from  home  in  search  of  employ 
ment,  the  wealthy  found  it  more  and  more  easy  to  accomplish  "  the 
great  works"  for  which,  as  the  London  Times  inform  us,  the  coun 
try  is  indebted  to  the  "  cheap  labour  of  Ireland,"  and  the  greater 
the  influx  of  this  labour  the  more  rapid  was  the  decline  in  the 
power  of  both  Ireland  and  Britain  to  furnish  a  market  for  the  pro- 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  215 

ducts  of  the  manufacturing  labour  of  England.  Hence  arose,  of 
course,  a  necessity  for  looking  abroad  for  new  markets  to  take  the 
place  of  those  before  obtained  at  home,  and  thus  cheap  labour,  a 
consequence  of  the  system,  became  in  its  turn  a  cause  of  new  efforts 
at  dispensing  with  and  further  cheapening  labour.  As  the  Irish 
man  could  no  longer  buy,  it  became  necessary  that  the  Hindoo 
should  be  driven  from  his  own  market.  As  the  Highlander  was 
expelled,  it  became  more  and  more  necessary  to  underwork  the 
spinners  and  weavers  of  China.  As  the  Bengalese  now  become 
impoverished,  there  arises  a  necessity  for  filling  the  Punjab  and 
Afghanistan,  Burmah  and  Borneo,  with  British  goods.  Pauperism 
lies  necessarily  at  the  root  of  such  a  system.  "  It  is,"  said  a 
speaker  at  the  late  Bradford  election  for  representative  in  Parlia 
ment — 

"Its  root.  That  system  is  based  on  foreign  competition.  Now  I 
assert,  that  under  the  buy  cheap  and  sell  dear  principle,  brought  to  bear 
on  foreign  competition,  the  ruin  of  the  working  and  small  trading  classes 
must  go  on.  Wliy  ?  Labour  is  the  creator  of  all  wealth.  A  man  must 
work  before  a  grain  is  grown,  or  a  yard  is  woven.  But  there  is  no 
self-employment  for  the  working-man  in  this  country.  Labour  is  a 
hired  commodity — labour  is  a  thing  in  the  market  that  is  bought  and 
sold  ;  consequently,  as  labour  creates  all  wealth,  labour  is  the  first 
thing  bought.  '  Buy  cheap !  buy  cheap !'  Labour  is  bought  in  the 
cheapest  market.  But  now  comes  the  next.  'Sell  dear!  sell  dear!' 
Sell  what?  Labour' s  produce.  To  whom?  To  the  foreigner — ay!  and 
to  the  labourer  himself- — for  labour  not  being  self-employed,  the  labourer 
is  not  the  partaker  of  the  first-fruits  of  his  toil.  '  Buy  cheap,  sell  dear/ 
How  do  you  like  it  ?  '  Buy  cheap,  sell  dear/  Buy  the  working-man's 
labour  cheaply,  and  sell  back  to  that  very  working-man  the  produce 
of  his  own  labour  dear !  The  principle  of  inherent  loss  is  in  the  bargain. 
The  employer  buys  the  labour  cheap — he  sells,  and  on  the  sale  he  must 
make  a  profit :  he  sells  to  the  working-man  himself — and  thus  every 
bargain  between  employer  and  employed  is  a  deliberate  cheat  on  the 
part  of  the  employer.  Thus  labour  has  to  sink  through  eternal  loss, 
that  capital  may  rise  through  lasting  fraud.  But  the  system  stops  not 
here.  THIS  is  BROUGHT  TO  BEAR  ON  FOREIGN  COMPETITION — WHICH 

MEANS,  WE    MUST    RUIN    THE    TRADE    OF    OTHER    COUNTRIES,   AS   WE    HAVE 

RUINED  THE  LABOUR  OF  OUR  OWN.  How  does  it  work  ?  The  high-taxed 
country  has  to  undersell  the  low-taxed.  Competition  abroad  is  con 
stantly  increasing,  consequently  cheapness  must  increase  also.  Therefore, 
wages  in  England  must  keep  constantly  falling.  And  how  do  they 
effect  the  fall  ?  By  surplus  labour.  By  monopoly  of  the  land,  which 
drives  more  hands  than  are  wanted  into  the  factory.  By  monopoly 
of  machinery,  which  drives  those  hands  into  the  street ;  by  woman 


216  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

labour,  which  drives  the  man  from  the  shuttle  ;  by  child  labour,  which 
drives  the  woman  from  the  loom.  Then  planting  their  foot  upon  that 
living  base  of  surplus,  they  press  its  aching  heart  beneath  their  heel, 
and  cry  '  Starvation !  Who'll  work  ?  A  half  loaf  is  better  than  no 
bread  at  all ;'  and  the  writhing  mass  grasps  greedily  at  their  terms. 
Such  is  the  system  for  the  working-man.  But,  electors,  how  does  it 
operate  on  you?  how  does  it  affect  home  trade,  the  shopkeeper,  poor's 
rate,  and  taxation  ?  For  every  increase  of  competition  abroad,  there  must 
be  an  increase  of  cheapness  at  home.  Every  increase  of  cheapness  in 
labour  is  based  on  increase  of  labour  surplus,  and  this  surplus  is  ob 
tained  by  an  increase  of  machinery.  I  repeat,  how  does  this  operate 
on  you?  The  Manchester  liberal  on  my  left  establishes  a  new  patent, 
and  throws  three  hundred  men  as  a  surplus  in  the  streets.  Shop 
keepers  !  Three  hundred  customers  less.  Rate-payers  !  Three  hun 
dred  paupers  more.  But,  mark  me  !  The  evil  stops  not  there.  These 
three  hundred  men  operate  first  to  bring  down  the  wages  of  those  who  re 
main  at  work  in  their  own  trade.  The  employer  says,  '  Now  I  reduce 
your  wages.'  The  men  demur.  Then  he  adds,  '  Do  you  see  those 
three  hundred  men  who  have  just  walked  out?  you  may  change 
places  if  you  like,  they're  sighing  to  come  in  on  any  terms,  for  they're 
starving.'  The  men  feel  it,  and  are  crushed.  Ah  !  you  Manchester 
liberal !  Pharisee  of  politics !  those  men  are  listening — have  I  got  you 
now?  But  the  evil  stops  not  yet.  Those  men,  driven  from  their  own 
trade,  seek  employment  in  others,  when  they  swell  the  surplus  and  bring 
wages  down." 

Strong  as  is  all  this,  it  is  nevertheless  true.  England  is  engaged 
in  a  war  of  extermination  waged  against  the  labour  of  all  other 
countries  employed  in  any  pursuit  except  that  of  raising  raw  pro 
duce  to  be  sent  to  her  own  market,  there  to  be  exchanged  for  the 
cloth  and  the  iron  produced  at  the  mills  and  furnaces  of  her  million 
aires,  who  have  accumulated  their  vast  fortunes  at  the  expense  of 
Ireland,  India,  Portugal,  Turkey,  and  the  other  countries  that  have 
been  ruined  by  the  system  which  looks  to  the  exhaustion  of  the  soil 
of  all  other  lands,  to  the  impoverishment  and  enslavement  of  their 
people,  and  which  was  so  indignantly  denounced  by  Adam  Smith. 
In  the  effort  to  crush  them  she  has  been  crushing  her  own  people, 
and  the  more  rapid  the  spread  of  pauperism  at  home  the  greater 
have  been  her  efforts  to  produce  the  surplus  labour  which  causes  a 
fall  of  wages  at  home  and  abroad. 

With  the  consolidation  of  land  in  the  Hands  of  a  few  proprietors 
there  is  a  steady  decline  in  the  number  of  people  employed  upon 
it,  and  an  equally  steady  one  in  that  hope  of  rising  in  the  world 
which  is  elsewhere  seen  to  be  the  best  incentive  to  exertion.  "  The 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  217 

peasant  knows,"  says  a  recent  English  writer,*  "  that  he  must  die 
in  the  same  position  in  which  he  was  born."  Again,  he  says, 
"  the  want  of  small  farms  deprives  the  peasant  of  all  hope  of  im 
proving  his  condition  in  life."  The  London  Times  assures  its 
readers  that  "once  a  peasant  in  England,  the  man  must  remain  a 
peasant  for  ever;"  and  Mr.  Kay,  after  careful  examination  of  the 
condition  of  the  people  of  continental  Europe,  assures  his  readers 
that,  as  one  of  the  consequences  of  this  state  of  things,  the  peasantry 
of  England  "are  more  ignorant,  more  demoralized,  less  capable  of 
helping  themselves,  and  more  pauperized,  than  those  of  any  other 
country  in  Europe,  if  we  except  Russia,  Turkey,  South  Italy,  and 
some  parts  of  the  Austrian  Empire. "f 

Under  such  circumstances  the  middle  class  tends  gradually  to 
pass  away,  and  its  condition  is  well  expressed  by  the  term  now  so 
frequently  used,  "the  uneasy  class."  The  small  capitalist,  who 
would  elsewhere  purchase  a  piece  of  land,  a  horse  and  cart,  or  a 
machine  of  some  kind  calculated  to  enable  him  to  double  the  pro 
ductiveness  of  his  labour  and  increase  its  reward,  is  in  England 
forced  to  make  his  investments  in  savings  banks  or  life-insurance 
offices,  and  thus  to  place  his  little  capital  in  the  hands  of  others, 
at  three  per  cent.,  whereas  he  could  have  fifty  or  a  hundred  per 
cent,  could  he  be  permitted  to  use  it  himself.  There  is,  therefore, 
a  perpetual  strife  for  life,  and  each  man -is,  as  has  been  said,  "en 
deavouring  to  snatch  the  piece  of  bread  from  his  neighbour's 
mouth."  The  atmosphere  of  England  is  one  of  intense  gloom. 
Every  one  is  anxious  for  the  future,  for  himself  or  his  children. 
There  is  a  universal  feeling  of  doubt  as  to  how  to  dispose  of  the 
labour  or  the  talents  of  themselves  or  their  sons,  and  the  largest 
fees  are  paid  to  men  already  wealthy,  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  aid 
toward  securing  steady  employment.  "  This  gloom  of  England," 
says  a  late  English  writer — 

"  Is  in  truth  one  of  the  most  formidable  evils  of  modern  times. 
With  all  the  advance  in  morality  and  decency  of  the  present  century, 


*  Kay's  Social  Condition  of  England  and  of  Europe,  vol.  i.  70. 
f  Ibid.  359. 

19 


218 

we  have  receded  rather  than  gone  forward  in  the  attainment  of  that 
true  Christian  cheerfulness,  which — notwithstanding  the  popular  pro 
verb — I  believe  to  be  the  blessing  next  in  value  to  godliness. 

"I  truly  believe,"  he  continues,  "that  one  of  the  chief  obstacles  to 
the  progress  of  pure  living  Christianity  in  this  country  is  to  be  found 
in  that  worldly  carefulness  which  causes  our  intense  gravity,  and  makes 
us  the  most  silent  nation  in  Europe.  The  respectability  of  England  is 
its  bane ;  we  worship  respectability,  and  thus  contrive  to  lose  both  the 
enjoyments  of  earth  and  the  enjoyments  of  heaven.  If  Great  Britain 
could  once  learn  to  laugh  like  a  child,  she  would  be  in  the  way  once 
more  to  pray  like  a  saint. 

"But  this  is  not  all:  the  sensuality  and  gross  vice,  and  the  hateful 
moroseness  and  harshness  of  temper,  which  result  from  our  indisposi 
tion  for  gayety  and  enjoyment,  are  literally  awful  to  think  of.  Pride 
and  licentiousness  triumph  in  our  land,  because  we  are  too  careworn  or 
too  stupid  to  enter  heartily  into  innocent  recreations.  Those  two  de 
mons,  one  of  which  first  cast  man  out  of  Paradise,  while  the  other  has 
degraded  him  to  the  level  of  the  brutes,  are  served  by  myriads  of 
helpless  slaves,  who  are  handed  over  to  a  bondage  of  passion,  through 
the  gloominess  that  broods  over  our  national  character.  The  young 
and  the  old  alike,  the  poor  and  the  wealthy,  are  literally  driven  to 
excess,  because  there  is  nothing  in  our  state  of  society  to  refresh  them 
after  their  toils,  or  to  make  life  as  much  a  season  of  enjoyment  as  the 
inevitable  lot  of  mortality  will  allow. 

"Men  fly  to  vice  for  the  want  of  pure  and  innocent  pleasures.  The 
gin-shops  receive  those  who  might  be  entertaining  themselves  with  the 
works  of  art  in  a  public  gallery.  The  whole  animal  portion  of  our 
being  is  fostered  at  the  expense  of  the  spiritual.  We  become  brutalized, 
because  we  are  morbidly  afraid  of  being  frivolous  and  of  wasting  our 
time.  The  devil  keeps  possession  of  an  Englishman's  heart,  through 
the  instrumentality  of  his  carnal  passions,  because  he  is  too  proud 
and  too  stupid  to  laugh  and  enjoy  himself. 

"Secret  sin  destroys  its  myriads,  immolated  on  the  altar  of  outward 
respectability  and  of  a  regard  for  the  opinion  of  a  money-getting 
world." 

The  existence  of  such  a  state  of  things  is  indeed  a  "  formidable 
evil/'  but  how  could  it  fail  to  exist  in  a  country  in  which  all  indi 
viduality  is  being  lost  as  the  little  land-owner  gradually  disappears 
to  be  replaced  by  the  day-labourer,  and  as  the  little  shop-keeper 
gradually  sinks  into  a  clerk  ?  How  could  it  be  otherwise  in  a 
country  in  which  weak  women,  and  children  of  the  most  tender 
age,  spend  their  nights  in  cellars,  and  the  long  day  of  twelve  or 
fifteen  hours  in  factories,  whose  owners  know  of  them  nothing  but, 
as  in  a  penitentiary,  their  number — a  country  in  which  males  and 
females  work  naked  in  coal-mines — and  find  themselves  compelled 
to  do  all  these  things  because  of  the  necessity  for  preventing  the 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  219 

poor  Hindoo  from  calling  to  his  aid  the  powerful  steam,  and  for 
compelling  him,  his  wife,  and  his  children,  to  limit  themselves  to 
the  labour  of  the  field?  •  How  could  it  be  otherwise  in  a  country 
in  which  "  labourers,  whether  well  off  or  not,  never  attempt  to  be 
better?'1*  How  otherwise  in  a  country  distinguished  among  all 
others  for  the  enormous  wealth  of  a  few,  for  the  intensity  of  toil 
and  labour  of  all  below  them,  and  for  the  anxiety  with  which  the 
future  is  regarded  by  all  but  those  who,  bereft  of  hope,  know  that 
all  they  can  expect  on  this  side  of  the  grave  is  an  indifferent  supply 
of  food  and  raiment  ?  "  In  no  country  of  the  world/'  says  Mr. 
Kay — 

"  Is  so  much  time  spent  in  the  mere  acquisition  of  wealth,  and  so 
little  time  in  the  enjoyment  of  life  and  of  all  the  means  of  happiness 
which  God  has  given  to  man,  as  in  England. 

"In  no  country  in  the  world  do  the  middle  classes  labour  so  intensely 
as  here.  One  would  think,  to  view  the  present  state  of  English  society, 
that  man  was  created  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  collect  wealth,  and 
that  he  was  forbidden  to  gratify  the  beautiful  tastes  with  which  he 
has  been  gifted  for  the  sake  of  his  own  happiness.  To  be  rich,  with 
us,  is  the  great  virtue,  the  pass  into  all  society,  the  excuse  for  many 
frailties,  and  the  mask  for  numerous  deformities." 

An  Eastern  proverb  says  that "  curses,  like  young  chickens,  al 
ways  come  home  to  roost."  Few  cases  could  be  presented  of  a 
more  perfect  realization  of  this  than  is  found  in  the  present  condi 
tion  of  England.  Half  a  century  since  it  was  decreed  that  the 
poor  people  of  Ireland  should  confine  themselves  to  the  cultivation 
and  exhaustion  of  their  soil,  abstaining  from  the  mining  of  coal, 
the  smelting  of  ore,  or  the  making  of  cloth ;  and  during  nearly  all 
that  time  they  have  so  flooded  England  with  "cheap  labour"  as  to 
have  produced  from  the  Times  the  declaration,  before  referred  to, 
that  "  for  a  whole  generation  man  has  been  a  drug  and  population 
a  nuisance" — precisely  the  state  of  things  in  which  men  tend  most 
to  become  enslaved.  Cheap  corn,  cheap  cotton,  cheap  tobacco,  and 
cheap  sugar,  mean  low-priced  agricultural  labour;  and  the  low- 
priced  labourer  is  always  a  slave,  and  aiding  to  produce  elsewhere 
the  slavery  of  his  fellow-labourers,  whether  in  the  field  cr  in  the 

*  Kay's  Social  Condition  of  England  and  of  Europe,  vol.  1, 183. 


220  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

workshop.  This,  however,  is  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  doc 
trines  of  some  of  England's  most  distinguished  statesmen,  as  the 
reader  has  already  seen  in  the  declaration  of  Mr.  Huskisson,  that 
"  to  give  capital  a  fair  remuneration,  the  price  of  labour  must  be 
kept  down," — by  which  he  proved  the  perfect  accuracy  of  the  pre 
dictions  of  the  author  of  The  Wealth  of  Nations. 

The  harmony  of  true  interests  among  nations  is  perfect,  and  an 
enlightened  self-interest  would  lead  every  nation  to  carry  into  full 
effect  the  golden  rule  of  Christianity ;  and  yet  even  now,  the  most 
distinguished  men  in  England  regard  smuggling  almost  as  a  vir 
tuous  act,  and  the  smuggler  as  a  great  reformer,  because  his  labours 
tend  to  enable  their  countrymen  to  do  everywhere  what  has  been 
done  in  the  West  Indies,  in  Ireland,  Portugal,  Turkey,  and  India — 
separate  the  consumer  from  the  producer.  They  regard  it  as  the 
appointed  work  of  England  to  convert  the  whole  earth  into  one  vast 
farm  dependent  upon  one  vast  workshop,  and  that  shop  in  the 
island  of  Great  Britain.  Such  being  the  views  of  peers  of  the 
realm,  lord  chancellors,  ministers  of  state,  political  economists, 
and  statisticians,  can  we  wonder  at  a  decline  of  morality  among  the 
middle  class,  under  the  combined  influence  of  the  struggle  for  life, 
and  the  assurance  that  "  the  end  sanctifies  the  means,"  and  that 
false  invoices  are  but  a  means  of  working  out  a  great  reformation 
in  the  commercial  system  of  the  world  ?  Good  ends  rarely  require 
such  means  for  their  accomplishment,  and  the  very  fact  that  it  was 
needed  to  have  Gibraltar  as  a  means  of  smuggling  into  Spain, 
Canada  as  a  means  of  smuggling  into  this  country,*  and  Hong 
Kong  for  the  purpose  of  poisoning  the  Chinese  with  smuggled 
opium,  should  have  led  to  a  careful  consideration  of  the  question 
whether  or  not  the  system  which  looked  to  exhausting  the  soil  of 
Virginia  and  driving  the  poor  negro  to  the  sugar  culture  in  Texas, 
was  one  of  the  modes  of  "  doing  God  service." 

Unsound  moral  feeling  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  an  exclu 
sive  devotion  to  trade  such  as  is  now  seen  to  exist  in  England.  It 


*  On  a  recent  occasion  in  the  House  of  Lords,  it  was  declared  to  be  important 
to  retain  Canada,  on  the  express  ground  that  it  greatly  facilitated  smuggling. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  221 

is  the  business  of  the  trader  to  buy  cheaply  and  sell  dearly,  be  the 
consequences  what  they  may  to  those  from  whom  he  buys,  or  to 
whom  he  sells;  and  unhappily  the  prosperity  of  England  now 
depends  so  entirely  on  buying  cheaply  and  selling  dearly  that  she 
is  forced  to  overlook  the  effects  upon  those  to  whom  she  sells,  or 
from  whom  she  buys,  and  she  therefore  rejoices  when  others  are 
being  ruined,  and  grieves  when  they  are  being  enriched.  Her 
interests  are  always,  and  necessarily  so,  opposed  to  those  of  the  rest 
of  the  world.  She  must  look  at  every  thing  with  the  eyes  of  the 
mere  trader  who  wishes  to  buy  cheaply  and  sell  dearly,  living  at 
the  cost  of  the  producer  and  the  consumer.  The  former  desires 
good  prices  for  his  sugar,  and  yet  so  anxious  was  she  to  obtain 
cheap  sugar  that  she  forgot  her  engagements  with  the  poor  emapci- 
pated  negroes  of  Jamaica.  The  former  desires  good  prices  for  his 
corn,  but  so  anxious  was  she  to  have  cheap  corn,  that  she  forgot  hav 
ing  deprived  the  people  of  Ireland  of  all  employment  but  in  agri 
culture,  and  at  once  adopted  measures  whose  action  is  now  expelling 
the  whole  nation  from  the  scenes  of  their  youth,  and  separating 
husbands  and  wives,  mothers  and  children.  She  has  placed  her 
self  in  a  false  position,  and  cannot  now  afford  to  reflect  upon  the 
operation  of  cheap  sugar  and  cheap  corn,  cheap  cotton  and  cheap 
tobacco,  upon  the  people  who  produce  them ;  and  therefore  it  is 
that  the  situation  of  Ireland  and  India,  and  of  the  poor  people  of 
Jamaica,  is  so  much  shut  out  from  discussion.  Such  being  the 
case  with  those  who  should  give  tone  to  public  opinion,  how  can 
we  look  for  sound  or  correct  feeling  among  the  poor  occupants  of 
"  the  sweater's  den/'*  or  among  the  20,000  tailors  of  London, 
seeking  for  work  and  unable  to  find  it  ?  Or,  how  look  for  it  among 
the  poor  shopkeepers,  compelled  in  self-defence  to  adulterate  almost 
every  thing  they  sell,  when  they  see  the  great  cotton  manufacturer 
using  annually  hundreds  of  barrels  of  flour  to  enable  him  to  im 
pose  worthless  cloth  upon  the  poor  Hindoo,  and  thus  annihilate 
his  foreign  competitor  ?  Or,  how  expect  to  find  it  among  the  poor 
operatives  of  Lancashire,  at  one  moment  working  full  time,  at 


*  Alton  Locke. 
19* 


another  but  three  days  in  a  week,  and  at  a  third  totally  deprived  of 
employment,  because  goods  can  no  longer  be  smuggled  into  foreign 
countries  to  leave  a  profit  ?  With  them,  the  question  of  food  or 
no  food  is  dependent  altogether  upon  the  size  of  the  cotton  crop. 
If  the  slave  trade  is  brisk,  much  cotton  is  made,  and  they  have 
wages  with  which  to  support  their  wives  and  children.  If  the  crop 
is  large,  the  planter  may  be  ruined,  but  they  themselves  are  fed. 
"  The  weekly  mail  from  America,"  we  are  told — 

"  Is  not  of  more  moment  to  the  great  cotton  lord  of  Manchester,  than 
it  is  to  John  Shuttle  .the  weaver.  *  *  *  If  he  ever  thinks  how  entirely 
his  own  existence  and  that  of  his  own  little  household  depend  upon  the 
American  crop  *  *  *  he  would  tremble  at  the  least  rumour  of  war  with 
the  Yankees.  War  with  America — a  hurricane  in  Georgia — a  flood  in 
Alabama — are  one  and  all  death-cries  to  the  mill-spinner  and  power- 
loom  weaver.  *  *  *  When  the  cotton  fields  of  the  Southern  States  yield 
less  than  the  usual  quantity  of  cotton,  the  Manchester  operative  eats 
less  than  his  average  quantity  of  food.  When  his  blood  boils  at  the 
indignities  and  cruelties  heaped  upon  the  coloured  race  in  the  'Land 
of  the  Free,'  he  does  not  always  remember  that  to  the  slave  States  of 
America  he  owes  his  all — that  it  is  for  his  advantage  that  the  negro 
should  wear  his  chains  in  peace." — Household  Words. 

"  If  his  blood  boils"  at  the  sufferings  of  the  negro  in  Brazil,  or 
of  the  Hindoo  in  the  Mauritius,  he  must  recollect  that  it  is  at  the 
cost  of  those  sufferings  that  he  is  supplied  with  cheap  sugar.  If 
he  be  shocked  at  the  continuance  of  the  African  slave  trade,  he 
must  recollect  that  if  negroes  ceased  to  be  imported  into  Cuba,  he 
might  have  to  pay  a  higher  price  for  his  coffee.  If  he  is  excited 
at  the  idea  of  the  domestic  slave  trade  of  this  country,  he  must 
calm  himself  by  reflecting  that  it  is  "for  his  advantage"  it  is  con 
tinued,  and  that  without  it  he  could  not  have  cheap  cotton.  The 
labourers  of  the  various  parts  of  the  world  are  thus  taught  that 
there  is  among  themselves  an  universal  antagonism  of  interests, 
and  this  tends,  of  course,  to  the  production  of  a  bad  state  of  moral 
feeling,  and  an  universal  tendency  to  decline  in  the  feeling  of 
self-dependence.  Men,  women,  and  children  are  becoming  from 
day  to  day  more  dependent  on  the  will  of  others,  and  as  it  is  that 
dependence  which  constitutes  slavery,  we  might  with  reason  expect 
to  find  some  of  the  vices  of  the  slave — and  were  we  to  find  them 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  223 

we  should  not  greatly  err  in  attributing  their  existence  to  the  sys 
tem  thus  described  by  Adam  Smith  : — 

"  The  industry  of  Great  Britain,  instead  of  being  accommodated  to 
a  great  number  of  small  markets,  has  been  principally  suited  to  one 
great  market.  Her  commerce,  instead  of  running  in  a  ^reat  number 
of  small  channels,  has  been  taught  to  run  principally  in  one  great 
channel.  But  the  whole  system  of  her  industry  and  commerce  has 
thereby  been  rendered  less  secure,  the  whole  state  of  her  body  politic 
less  healthful  than  it  otherwise  would  have  been.  In  her  present  con 
dition,  Great  Britain  resembles  one  of  those  unwholesome  bodies  in 
which  some  of  the  vital  parts  are  overgrown,  and  which,  upon  that 
account,  are  liable  to  many  dangerous  disorders,  scarce  incident  to 
those  in  which  all  the  parts  are  more  properly  proportioned.  A  small 
stop  in  that  great  blood-vessel  which  has  been  artificially  swelled  be 
yond  its  natural  dimensions,  and  through  which  an  unnatural  propor 
tion  of  the  industry  and  commerce  of  the  country  has  been  forced  to 
circulate,  is  very  likely  to  bring  on  the  most  dangerous  disorders  upon 
the  whole  body  politic." 

This  is  an  accurate  picture  of  that  country  under  a  system  that 
seeks  to  direct  the  whole  energies  of  its  people  into  one  direction, 
that  of  "  buying  in  the  cheapest  market  and  selling  in  the  dearest 
one," — the  pursuit  that  is,  of  all  others,  the  least  favourable  to  the 
development  of  the  moral  and  intellectual  faculties  of  man. 
How  it  is  operating  may  be  judged  by  the  following  description 
from  an  English  writer  already  quoted : — 

"  Of  the  children  of  the  poor,  who  are  yearly  born  in  England,  vast 
numbers  never  receive  any  education  at  all,  while  many  others  never 
enter  any  thing  better  than  a  dame  or  a  Sunday-school.  In  the  towns 
they  are  left  in  crowds  until  about  eight  or  nine  years  of  age,  to 
amuse  themselves  in  the  dirt  of  the  streets,  while  their  parents  pursue 
their  daily  toil.  In  these  public  thoroughfares,  during  the  part  of 
their  lives  which  is  most  susceptible  of  impressions  and  most  reten 
tive  of  them,  they  acquire  dirty,  immoral,  and  disorderly  habits ;  they 
become  accustomed  to  wear  filthy  and  ragged  clothes  ;  they  learn  to 
pilfer  and  to  steal ;  they  associate  with  boys  who  have  been  in  prison, 
and  who  have  there  been  hardened  in  crime  by  evil  associates ;  they 
learn  how  to  curse  one  another,  how  to  fight,  how  to  gamble,  and  how 
to  fill  up  idle  hours  by  vicious  pastimes ;  they  acquire  no  knowledge 
except  the  knowledge  of  vice ;  they  never  come  in  contact  with  their 
betters ;  and  they  are  not  taught  either  the  truths  of  religion  or  the 
way  by  which  to  improve  their  condition  in  life.  Their  amusements 
are"  as"  low  as  their  habits.  The  excitements  of  low  debauchery  too 
horrible  to  be  named,  of  spirituous  liquors,  which  they  begin  to  drink 
as  early  as  they  can  collect  pence  wherewith  to  buy  them,  of  the  com 
mission  and  concealments  of  thefts,  and  of  rude  and  disgusting  sports, 
are  the  pleasures  of  their  life.  The  idea  of  going  to  musical  meetings 


224  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

such  as  those  of  the  German  poor,  would  be  scoffed  at,  even  if  there 
were  any  such  meetings  for  them  to  attend.  Innocent  dancing  is  un 
known  to  them.  Country  sports  they  cannot  have.  Read  they  can 
not*.  So  they  hurry  for  amusement  and  excitement  to  the  gratification 
of  sensual  desires  and  appetites.  In  this  manner,  filthy,  lewd, 
sensual,  boisterous,  and  skilful  in  the  commission  of  crime,  a  great 
part  of  the  populations  of  our  towns  grow  up  to  manhood.  Of  the 
truth  or  falsehood  of  this  description  any  one  can  convince  himself, 
who  will  examine  our  criminal  records,  or  who  will  visit  the  back 
streets  of  any  English  town,  when  the  schools  are  full,  and  2ount  the 
children  upon  the  door-steps  and  pavements,  and  note  their  condition, 
manners,  and  appearance,  and  their  degraded  and  disgusting  prac 
tices.— Kay,  vol.  i.  33.* 

This  is,  however,  little  different  from  what  might  be  looked  for 
in  a  country  whose  provision  for  the  education  of  its  people  is 
thus  described : — 

"About  one-half  of  our  poor  can  neither  read  nor  write.  The  test 
of  signing  the  name  at  marriage  is  a  very  imperfect  absolute  test  of 
education,  but  it  is  a  very  good  relative  one :  taking  that  test,  how 
stands  Leeds  itself  in  the  Registrar-General's  returns  ?  In  Leeds, 
which  is  the  centre  of  the  movement  for  letting  education  remain  as 
it  is,  left  entirely  to  chance  and  charity  to  supply  its  deficiencies,  bow 
do  we  find  the  fact  ?  This,  that  in  1846,  the  last  year  to  which  these 
returns  are  brought  down,  of  1850  marriages  celebrated  in  Leeds  and 
Hunslet,  508  of  the  men  and  1020  of  the  women,  or  considerably 
more  than  one-half  of  the  latter,  signed  their  names  with  marks.  '  I 
have  also  a  personal  knowledge  of  this  fact — that  of  47  men  employed 
upon  a  railway  in  this  immediate  neighbourhood,  only  14  men  can 
sign  their  names  in  the  receipt  of  their  wages ;  and  this  not  because 
of  any  diffidence  on  their  part,  but  positively  because  they  cannot 
write/  And  only  lately,  the  Leeds  Mercury  itself  gave  a  most  striking 
instance  of  ignorance  among  persons  from  Boeotian  Pudsey :  of  12 
witnesses,  '  all  of  respectable  appearance,  examined  before  the  Mayor 
of  Bradford  at  the  court-house  there,  only  one  man  could  sign  his 
name,  and  that  indifferently/  Mr.  Nelson  has  clearly  shown,  in  sta- 
tictics  of  crime  in  England  and  Wales  from  1834  to  1844,  that  crime 
is  invariably  the  most  prevalent  in  those  districts  where  .the  fewest 
numbers  in  proportion  to  the  population  can  read  and  write.  Is  it 
not  indeed  beginning  at  the  wrong  end  to  try  and  reform  men  after 
they  have  become  criminals  ?  Yet  you  cannot  begin  with  children, 
from  want  of  schools.  Poverty  is  the  result  of  ignorance,  and  then 
ignorance  is  again  the  unhappy  result  of  poverty.  '  Ignorance  makes 
men  improvident  and  thoughtless — women  as  well  as  men  ;  it  makes 
them  blind  to  the  future — to  the  future  of  this  life  as  well  as  the  life 
beyond.  It  makes  them  dead  to  higher  pleasures  than  those  of  the 


*  Lord  Ashley  informs  us  that  there  are  30,000  poor  children  such  as  these  in 
London  alone. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  225 

mere  senses,  and  keeps  them  down  to  the  level  of  the  mere  animal. 
Hence  the  enormous  extent  of  drunkenness  throughout  this  country, 
and  the  frightful  waste  of  means  which  it  involves.'  At  Bilston,  amidst 
20,000  people,  there  are  but  two  struggling  schools — one  has  lately 
ceased  ;  at  Millenhall,  Darlaston,  and  Pelsall,  amid  a  teeming  popula 
tion,  no  school  whatever.  In  Oldham,  among  100,000,  but  one  public 
day-school  for  the  labouring  classes  ;  the  others  are  an  infant  school, 
and  some  dame  and  factory  schools.  At  Birmingham,  there  are  21,824 
children  at  school,  and  23,176  at  no  school;  at  Liverpool,  50,000  out 
of  90,000  at  no  school ;  at  Leicester,  8200  out  of  12,500 ;  and  at  Leeds 
itself,  in  1841,  (the  date  of  the  latest  returns,)  some  9GOO  out  of  10,400, 
were  at  no  school  whatever.  It  is  the  same  in  the  counties.  *  I  have 
seen  it  stated,  that  a  woman  for  some  time  had  to  officiate  as  cleric  in 
a  church  in  Norfolk,  there  being  no  adult  male  in  the  parish  able  to 
read  and  write.'  For  a  population  of  17,000,000  we  have  but  twelve 
normal  schools  ;  while  in  Massachusetts  they  have  three  such  schools 
for  only  800,000  of  population." 

Such  being  the  education  of  the  voting,  we  may  now  look  to 
see  how  Mr.  Kay  describes  that  provided  for  people  of  a  more 
advanced  period  of  life  : — 

"  The  crowd  of  low  pot-houses  in  our  manufacturing  districts  is  a 
sad  and  singular  spectacle*  They  are  to  be  found  in  every  street  and 
alley  of  the  towns,  and  in  almost  every  lane  and  turning  of  the  more 
rural  villages  of  those  districts,  if  any  of  those  villages  can  be  called 
rural. 

"  The  habit  of  drunkenness  pervades  the  masses  of  the  operatives  to 
an  extent  never  before  known  in  our  country. 

"  In  a  great  number  of  these  taverns  and  pot-houses  of  the  manu 
facturing  districts,  prostitutes  are  kept  for  the  express  purpose  of 
enticing  the  operatives  to  frequent  them,  thus  rendering  them  doubly 
immoral  and  pernicious.  I  have  been  assured  in  Lancashire,  on  the 
best  authority,  that  in  one  of  the  manufacturing  towns,  and  that,  too, 
about  third  rate  in  point  of  size  and  population,  there  are  sixty  taverns, 
where  prostitutes  are  kept  by  the  tavern  landlords,  in  order  to  en 
tice  customers  into  them.  Their  demoralizing  influence  upon  the 
population  cannot  be  exaggerated ;  and  yet  these  are  almost  the  only 
resorts  which  the  operatives  have,  when  seeking  amnsement  or  relaxa 
tion. 

"  In  those  taverns  where  prostitutes  are  not  actually  kept  for  the  pur 
pose  of  enticing  customers,  they  are  always  to  be  found  in  the  even 
ings,  at  the  time  the  workmen  go  there  to  drink.  In  London  and  in 
Lancashire  the  gin-palaces  are  the  regular  rendezvous  for  the  aban 
doned  of  both  sexes,  and  the  places  where  the  lowest  grade  of  women- 
of-the-town  resort  to  find  customers.  It  is  quite  clear  that  young  men, 
who  once  begin  to  meet  their  friends  at  these  places,  cannot  long  es 
cape  the  moral  degradation  of  these  hot-houses  of  vice. 

"The  singular  and  remarkable  difference  between  the  respective  con 
dition  of  the  peasants  and  operatives  of  Germany  and  Switzerland, 


226  THE    SLAVE    TRAI>E, 

and  those  of  England  and  Ireland,  in  this  respect,  is  alone  sufficient 
to  prove  the  singular  difference  between  their  respective  social  condi 
tion. 

"  The  village  inn  in  Germany  is  quite  a  different  kind  of  place  to  the 
village  inn  in  England.  It  is  intended  and  used  less  for  mere  drink 
ing,  than  as  a  place  for  meeting  and  conversation ;  it  is,  so  to  speak, 
the  villagers'  club."— Vol.  i.  232. 

Under  such  circumstances,  we  cannot  be  surprised  when  told  by 
Mr.  Alison  that  over  the  whole  kingdom  crime  increases  four  times 
as  fast  as  the  population,  and  that  "  in  Lancashire  population 
doubles  in  thirty  years,  crime  in  five  years  and  a  half/'  How, 
indeed,  could  it  be  otherwise  under  a  system  based  upon  the  idea 
of  "  keeping  labour  down" — one  that  tends  to  the  consolidation 
of  the  land  and  the  exclusion  of  men  from  the  work  of  cultiva 
tion,  and  then  excludes  them  from  the  factory,  while  forcing 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  indigent  and  almost  starving  Irish  into 
England  in  search  of  employment  ?  The  process  of  "eviction"  in 
Ireland  has  been  already  described.  How  the  same  work  has 
been,  and  is  being,  performed  in  England  is  thus  stated  by  the 
Times  : — 

"  Our  village  peasantry  are  jostled  about  from  cottage  to  cottage, 
or  from  cottage  to  no  cottage  at  all,  as  freely  and  with  as  little  re 
gard  to  their  personal  tastes  and  conveniences  as  if  we  were  removing 
imr  pigs,  cows,  and  horses  from  one  sty  or  shed  to  another.  If  they 
cannot  get  a  house  over  their  heads  they  go  to  the  Union,  and  are  dis 
tributed — the  man  in  one  part,  the  wife  in  another,  and  the  children 
again  somewhere  else-.  That  is.  a  settled  thing.  Our  peasantry  bear 
it,  or,  if  they  can't  bear  it,  they  die,  and  there  is  an  end  of  it  on  this 
side  of  the  grave  ;  though  how  it  will  stand  at  the  great  audit,  we 
leave  an  '  English  Catholic'  to  imagine.  We  only  mean  to  say  that 
in  England  the  work  has  been  done ;  cotters  have  been  exterminated ; 
small  holdings  abolished  ;  the  process  of  eviction  rendered  superflu 
ous  ;  the  landlord's  word  made  law ;  the  refuge  of  the  discontented 
reduced  to  a  workhouse,  and  all  without  a  shot,  or  a  bludgeon,  or  a 
missile  being  heard  of." 

Thus  driven  from  the  land,  they  are  forced  to  take  refuge  in 
London  and  Liverpool,  Manchester,  Birmingham,  and  Leeds,  and 
accordingly  there  it  is  that  we  find  nearly  the  whole  increase  of 
population  in  the  last  ten  years.  Out  of  less  than  two  millions, 
more  than  400,000  were  added  to  the  number  of  London  alone, 
and  those  who  are.  familiar  with  Mr.  Mayhew'a  work,  London 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  227 

Labour  and  London  Poor,  do  not  need  to  be  told  of  the  extraor 
dinary  wretchedness,  nor  of  the  immorality  that  there  abound. 
Inquiries  set  on  foot  by  Lord  Ashley  have  shown  that  "  in  the 
midst  of  that  city  there  are,"  says  Mr.  Kay — 

"  Persons,  forming  a  separate  class,  having  pursuits,  interests,  man 
ners,  and  customs  of  their  own,  and  that  the  filthy,  deserted,  roam 
ing,  and  lawless  children,  who  may  be  called  the  source  of  19-20ths 
of  the  crime  which  desolates  the  metropolis,  are  not  fewer  in  number 
than  THIRTY  THOUSAND! 

"  These  30,000  are  quite  independent  of  the  number  of  mere  pauper 
children,  who  crowd  the  streets  of  Londen,  and  who  never  enter  a 
school :  but  of  these  latter  nothing  will  be  said  here. 

"  Now,  what  are  the  pursuits,  the  dwelling-houses,  and  the  habits 
of  these  poor  wretches  ?  Of  1600,  who  were  examined,  1G2  confessed 
that  they  had  been  in  prison,  not  merely  once,  or  even  twice,  but  some 
of  them  several  times  ;  116  had  run  away  from  their  homes  ;  170  slept 
in  the  "  lodging-houses  ;"  253  had  lived  altogether  by  beggary  ;  216 
had  neither  shoes  nor  stockings ;  280  had  no  hat  or  cap,  or  covering 
for  the  head  ;  101  had  no  linen  ;  249  had  never  slept  in  a  bed  ;  many 
had  no  recollection  of  ever  having  been  in  a  bed ;  68  were  the  children 
of  convicts."— Vol.  i.  394. 

In  the  towns  of  the  manufacturing  districts  there  are,  says  the 
same  author — 

"  A  great  number  of  cellars  beneath  the  houses  of  the  small  shop 
keepers  and  operatives,  which  are  inhabited  by  crowds  of  poor  inhabit 
ants.  Each  of  these  cellar-houses  contains  at  the  most  two,  and  often, 
and  in  some  towns  generally,  only  one  room.  These  rooms  measure, 
in  Liverpool,  from  10  to  12  feet  square.  In  some  other  towns  they 
are  rather  larger.  They  are  generally  nagged.  The  flags  lie  directly 
upon  the  earth,  and, are  generally  wretchedly  damp.  In  wet  weather 
they  are  very  often  not  dry  for  weeks  together.  Within  a  few  feet  of 
the  windows  of  these  cellars,  rises  the  wall  which  keeps  the  street 
from  falling  in  upon  them,  darkening  the  gloomy  rooms,  and  prevent 
ing  the  sun's  rays  penetrating  into  them. 

"  Dr.  Duncan,  in  describing  the  cellar-houses  of  the  manufacturing 
districts,  says* — '  The  cellars  are  ten  or  twelve  feet  square ;  generally 
flagged,  but  frequently  having  only  the  bare  earth  for  a  floor,  and 
sometimes  less  than  six  feet  in  height.  There  is  frequently  no  win 
dow,  so  that  light  and  air  can  gain  access  to  the  cellar  only  by  the 
door,  the  top  of  which  is  often  not  higher  than  the  level  of  the  street. 
In  such  cellars  ventilation  is  out  of  the  question.  They  are  of  course 
dark ;  and  from  the  defective  drainage,  they  are  also  very  generally 
damp.  There  is  sometimes  a  back  cellar,  used  as  a  sleeping  apart 
ment,  having  no  direct  communication  with  the  external  atmosphere, 


*  Reports  of  the  Health  of  Towns  Commission,  vol.  i.  127". 


228  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

and  deriving  its  scanty  supply  of  light  and  air  solely  from  the  front 
apartment/  " — Vol.  i.  447. 

"  One  of  the  city  missionaries,  describing  the  state  of  the  Mint 
district  in  the  city  of  London,  says,  '  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  de 
scribe  the  scenes,  which  are  to  be  witnessed  here,  or  to  set  forth  in  its 
naked  deformity  the  awful  characters  sin  here  assumes.  *  *  *  Li 
Mint  street,  alone,  there  are  nineteen  lodging-houses.  The  majority  of 
these  latter  are  awful  sinks  of  iniquity,  and  are  used  as  houses  of  ac 
commodation.  In  some  of  them,  both  sexes  sleep  together  indiscrimi 
nately,  and  such  acts  are  practised  and  witnessed,  that  married  per 
sons,  who  are  in  other  respects  awfully  depraved,  have  been  so  shock 
ed,  as  to  be  compelled  to  get  up  in  the  night  and  leave  the  house. 
Many  of  the  half-naked  impostors,  who  perambulate  the  streets  of 
London  in  the  daytime,  and  obtain  a  livelihood  by  their  deceptions, 
after  having  thrown  off  their  bandages,  crutches,  &c.,  may  be  found 
here  in  their  true  character ;  some  regaling  themselves  in  the  most 
extravagant  manner ;  others  gambling  or  playing  cards,  while  the 
worst  of  language  proceeds  from  their  lips.  Quarrels  and  fights  are 
very  common,  and  the  cry  of  murder  is  frequently  heard.  The 
public-houses  in  this  street  are  crowded  to  excess,  especially  on  the 
Sabbath  evening.  * 

"In  the  police  reports  published  in  the  Sun  newspaper  of  the  llth 
of  October,  1849,  the  following  account  is  given  of  '  a  penny  lodging- 
house'  in  Blue  Anchor  Yard,  Rosemary  Lane.  One  of  the  policemen 
examined,  thus  describes  a  room  in  this  lodging-house : — '  It  was  a 
very  small  one,  extremely  filthy,  and  there  was  no  furniture  of  any 
description  in  it.  There  were  sixteen  men,  women,  and  children  lying 
on  the  floor,  without  covering.  Some  of  them  were  half  naked.  For 
this  miserable  shelter,  each  lodger  paid  a  penny.  The  stench  was 
intolerable,  and  the  place  had  not  been  cleaned  out  for  some  time/ 

"If  the  nightly  inmates  of  these  dens  are  added  to  the  tramps  who 
seek  lodging  in  the  vagrant-wards  of  the  workhouses,  we  shall  find 
that  there  are  at  least  between  40,000  and  50,000  tramps  who  are 
daily  infesting  our  roads  and  streets  !" — Vol.  i.  431. 

In  the  agricultural  districts,  whole  families,  husbands  and  wives, 
sons  and  daughters,  sisters-in-law  and  brothers-in-law,  sleep  to 
gether,  and  here  we  find  a  source  of  extraordinary  immorality. 
"  The  accounts  we  receive,"  says  Mr.  Kay — 

"  From  all  parts  of  the  country  show  that  these  miserable  cottages 
are  crowded  to  an  extreme,  and  that  the  crowding  is  progressively 
increasing.  People  of  both  sexes,  and  of  all  ages,  both  married  and 
unmarried — parents,  brothers,  sisters,  and  strangers — sleep  in  the 
same  rooms  and  often  in  the  same  beds.  One  gentleman  tells  us  of 
six  people  of  different  sexes  and  ages,  two  of  whom  were  man  and 
Avife,  sleeping  in  the  same  bed,  three  with  their  heads  at  the  top  and 
three  with  their  heads  at  the  foot  of  the  bed.  Another  tells  us  of 

*  City  Mission  Magazine,  Oct.  1847. 


DOMESTIC   AXD    FOREIGN.  229 

adult  uncles  and  nieces  sleeping  in  the  same  room  close  to  each  other; 
another  of  the  uncles  and  nieces  sleeping  in  the  same  bed  together ; 
another  of  adult  brothers  and  sisters  sleeping  in  the  same  room  with 
a  brother  and  his  wife  just  married;  many  tell  us  of  adult  brothers 
and  sisters  sleeping  in  the  same  beds  ;  another  tells  us  of  rooms  so 
filled  with  beds  that  there  is  no  space  between  them,  but  that  bro 
thers,  sisters,  and  parents  crawl  over  each  other  half  naked  in  order 
to  get  to  their  respective  resting-places ;  another  of  its  being  common 
for  men  and  women,  not  being  relations,  to  undress  together  in  the 
same  room,  without  any  feeling  of  its  being  indelicate ;  another  of 
cases  where  women  have  been  delivered  in  bed-rooms  crowded  with 
men,  young  women,  and  children  ;  and  others  mention  facts  of  these 
crowded  bed-rooms  much  too  horrible  to  be  alluded  to.  Nor  are 
these  solitary  instances,  but  similar  reports  are  given  by  gentlemen 
writing  in  ALL  parts  of  the  country. 

"  The  miserable  character  of  the  houses  of  our  peasantry  is,  of  it 
self,  and  independently  of  the  causes  which  have  made  the  houses  so 
wretched,  degrading  and  demoralizing  the  poor  of  our  rural  districts 
in  a  fearful  manner.  It  stimulates  the  unhealthy  and  unnatural  in 
crease  of  population.  The  young  peasants  from  their  earliest  years 
are  accustomed  to  sleep  in  the  same  bed-rooms  with  people  of  both 
sexes,  and  with  both  married  and  unmarried  persons.  They  therefore 
lose  all  sense  of  the  indelicacy  of  such  a  life.  They  know,  too,  that 
they  can  gain  nothing  by  deferring  their  marriages  and  by  saving  ; 
that  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  obtain  better  houses  by  so  doing ;  and 
that  in  many  cases  they  must  wait  many  years  before  they  could  ob 
tain  a  separate  house  of  any  sort.  They  feel  that  if  they  defer  their 
marriage  for  ten  or  fifteen  years,  they  will  be  at  the  end  of  that  period 
in  just  the  same  position  as  before,  and  no  better  off  for  their  waiting. 
Having  then  lost  all  hope  of  any  improvement  of  their  social  situa 
tion,  and  all  sense  of  the  indelicacy  of  taking  a  wife  home  to  the  bed 
room  already  occupied  by  parents,  brothers,  and  sisters,  they  marry 
early  in  life, — often,  if  not  generally,  before  the  age  of  twenty, — and 
very  often  occupy,  for  the  first  part  of  their  married  life,  another  bed 
in  the  already  crowded  sleeping-room  of  their  parents !  In  this  way 
the  morality  of  the  peasants  is  destroyed ;  the  numbers  of  this  de 
graded  population  are  unnaturally  increased,  and  their  means  of  sub 
sistence  are  diminished  by  the  increasing  competition  of  their  in 
creasing  numbers." — Vol.  i.  472. 

A  necessary  consequence  of  this  demoralization  is  that  infanticide 
prevails  to  a  degree  unknown  in  any  other  part  of  the  civilized 
world.  The  London  Leader  informs  its  readers  that  upon  a  recent 
occasion — 

"  It  was  declared  by  the  coroner  of  Leeds,  and  assented  to  as  pro 
bable  by  the  surgeon,  that  there  were,  as  near  as  could  be  calculated, 
about  three  hundred  children  put  to  death  yearly  in  Leeds  alone  that 
were  not  registered  by  the  law.  In  other  words,  three  hundred  infants 

20 


230 

were  murdered  to  avoid  the  consequences  of  their  living,  and  these 
murders,  as  the  coroner  said,  are  never  detected." 

The  reader  may  now  advantageously  turn  to  the  account  of  the 
state  of  education  in  Leeds,  already  given,*  with  a  view  to  ascer 
tain  the  intellectual  condition  of  the  women  guilty  of  the  foul  and 
unnatural  crime  of  child-murder.  Doing  so,  he  will  find  that  out 
of  eighteen  hundred  and  fifty  that  were  married  there  were  one 
thousand  and  twenty  who  could  not  siyn  their  names — and  this  in 
the  centre  of  civilization  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century ! 

But  a  short  time  since,  the  Morning  Chronicle  gave  its  readers  a 
list  of  twenty-two  trials,  for  child-murder  alone,  that  had  been  re 
ported  in  its  columns,  and  these  were  stated  to  be  but  one-half 
of  those  that  had  taken  place  in  the  short  period  of  twenty-seven 
days !  On  the  same  occasion  it  stated  that  although  English 
ruifianism  had  "  not  taken  to  the  knife,"  it  had 

"Advanced  in  the  devilish  accomplishment  of  biting  off  noses  and 
scooping  out  eyes.  Kicking  a  man  to  death  while  he  is  down,"  it  con 
tinued,  "  or  treating  a  wife  in  the  same  way — stamping  on  an  enemy 
or  a  paramour  with  hobnailed  boots — smashing  a  woman's  head  with 
a  hand-iron — these  atrocities,  which  are  of  almost  daily  occurrence  in 
our  cities,  are  not  so  much  imputed  crimes  as  they  are  the  extravagant 
exaggerations  of  the  coarse,  brutal,  sullen  temper  of  an  Englishman, 
branded  by  ignorance  and  stupefied  by  drink." 

On  the  same  occasion  the  Chronicle  stated  that  in  villages  few 
young  people  of  the  present  day  marry  until,  as  the  phrase  is,  it 
has  "  become  necessary."  It  is,  it  continued,  the  rural  practice  to 
"keep  company  in  a  very  loose  sense,  till  a  cradle  is  as  necessary 
as  a  ring."  On  another,  and  quite  recent  occasion,  the  same  jour 
nal  furnished  its  readers  with  the  following  striking  illustration  of 
the  state  of  morals  : — 

"In  one  of  the  recent  Dorsetshire  cases,  [of  child  murder,]  common 
cause  was  made  by  the  girls  of  the  county.  They  attended  the  trial 
in  large  numbers ;  and  we  are  informed  that  on  the  acquittal  of  the 
prisoner  a  general  expression  of  delight  was  perceptible  in  the  court ; 
and  they  left  the  assizes  town  boasting  'that  they  might  now  do  as 
they  liked/  We  are  then,  it  seems,  with  all  our  boasted  civilization, 
relapsing  into  a  barbarous  and  savage  state  of  society." 


See  page  224,  ante. 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  231 

Lest  it  might  be  supposed  that  this  condition  of  things  had  been 
inherited,  the  editor  stated  that — 

"  This  deplorable  state  of  morals  was  of  comparatively  recent  growth. 
Old  people,"  he  continued,  "  can  often  tell  the  year  when  the  first  of 
such  cases  occurred  in  their  families,  and  what  a  sensation  of  shame 
it  then  excited ;  while  they  will  also  tell  us  that  the  difficulty  now 
is  to  find  a  lowly  couple  in  village  life  with  whom  the  rule  of  decency 
and  Christianity  is  not  the  exception.  It  is  a  disgraceful  fact — and 
one  which  education,  and  especially  religious  education,  has  to  account 
for — that  a  state  of  morals  has  grown  up  in  which  it  can  no  longer  be 
said  that  our  maidens  are  given  in  marriage." 

Infanticide  is  not,  however,  confined  to  the  unmarried.  Burial 
clubs  abound.  "  In  our  large  provincial  towns,"  says  Mr.  Kay — 

"  The  poor  are  in  the  habit  of  entering  their  children  in  what  are 
called  'burial  clubs/  A  small  sum  is  paid  every  year  by  the  parent, 
and  this  entitles  him  to  receive  from  3Z.  to  5Z.  from  the  club,  on  the 
death  of  the  child.  Many  parents  enter  their  children  in  several  clubs. 
One  man  in  Manchester  has  been  known  to  enter  his  child  in  nineteen 
different  clubs.  On  the  death  of  such  a  child,  the  parent  becomes 
entitled  to  receive  a  large  sum  of  money ;  and  as  the  burial  of  the 
child  does  not  necessarily  cost  more  than  1Z.,  or,  at  the  most,  II.  10s., 
the  parent  realizes  a  considerable  sum  after  all  the  expenses  are  paid  ! 

"  It  has  been  clearly  ascertained,  that  it  is  a  common  practice 
among  the  more  degraded  classes  of  poor  in  many  of  our  towns,  to 
enter  their  infants  in  these  clubs,  and  then  to  cause  their  death  either 
by  starvation,  ill-usage,  or  poison  !  What  more  horrible  symptom  of 
moral  degradation  can  be  conceived  ?  One's  mind  revolts  against  it, 
and  would  fain  reject  it  as  a  monstrous  fiction.  But,  alas  !  it  seems 
to  be  but  too  true. 

"Mr.  Chadwick  says,  'officers  of  these  burial  societies,  relieving 
officers,  and  others,  whose  administrative  duties  put  them  in  communi 
cation  with  the  lowest  classes  in  these  districts/  (the  manufacturing 
districts,)  'express  their  moral  conviction  of  the  operation  of  such 
bounties  to  produce  instances  of  the  visible  neglect  of  children  of  which 
they  are  witnesses.  They  often  say,  'You  are  not  treating  that  child 
properly  ;  it  will  not  live :  is  it  in  the  dub  ?'  And  the  answer  corre 
sponds  with  the  impression  produced  by  the  sight." — Vol.  i.433. 

Commenting  on  these  and  numerous  other  facts  of  similar  kind, 
the  same  author  says — 

"  These  accounts  are  really  almost  too  horrible  to  be  believed  at  all ; 
and  were  they  not  given  us  on  the  authority  of  such  great  experience 
and  benevolence,  we  should  totally  discredit  them. 

"But,  alas,  they  are  only  too  true !  There  can  be  no  doubt,  that  a  great 
part  of  the  poorer  classes  of  this  country  are  sunk  into  such  a  frightful 
depth  of  hoplessness,  misery,  and  utter  moral  degradation,  that  even 
mothers  forget  their  affection  for  their  helpless  little  offspring,  and  kill 


232  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

them,  as  a  butcher  does  his  lambs,  in  order  £o  make  money  by  the  mur 
der,  and  therewith  to  lessen  their  pauperism  and  misery  ?" — P.  446. 

How  rapid  is  the  progress  of  demoralization  may  be  seen  from 
the  fact  that  in  the  thirty  years  from  1821  to  1851,  the  consump 
tion  of  British  spirits  increased  from  4,125,616  to  9,595,368  gal 
lons,  or  in  a  ratio  more  than  double  that  of  the  population.  The 
use  of  opium  is  also  increasing  with  rapidity.*  Intemperance  and 
improvidence  go  hand  in  hand  with  each  other,  and  hence  arises 
a  necessity  for  burial  clubs  for  the  disposal  of  the  children  and  the 
maintenance  of  the  parents. 

A  recent  English  journal  states  that — 

"  It  is  estimated  that  in  Manchester  there  are  1500  '  unfortunate 
females ;'  that  they  lead  to  an  annual  expenditure  of  ,£470,000  ;  and 
that  some  250  of  them  die,  in  horror  and  despair,  yearly.  In  England 
it  is  calculated  that  there  are  40,000  houses  of  ill-fame,  and  280,000 
prostitutes  ;  and,  further,  that  not  less  than  £8,000,000  are  spent  an 
nually  in  these  places." 

This  may,  or  may  not,  be  exaggerated,  but  the  condition  to 
which  are  reduced  so  many  of  the  weaker  sex  would  warrant  us 
in  expecting  a  great  decay  of  morality.  When  severe  labour  can 
not  command  a  sufficiency  of  food,  can  we  be  surprised  that  women 
find  themselves  forced  to  resort  to  prostitution  as  a  means  of  support  ? 

A  committee  of  gentlemen  who  had  investigated  the  condition 
of  the  sewing-women  of  London  made  a  report  stating  that  no  less 
than  33,000  of  them  were  "permanently  at  the  starvation  point/' 
and  were  compelled  to  resort  to  prostitution  as  a  means  of  eking 
out  a  subsistence.  But  a  few  weeks  since,  the  Times  informed  its 
readers  that  shirts  were  made  for  a  penny  a  piece  by  women 
who  found  the  needles  and  thread,  and  the  Daily  News  furnished 
evidence  that  hundreds  of  young  women  had  no  choice  but  be 
tween  prostitution  and  making  artificial  flowers  at  twopence  a  day  ! 
Young  ladies  seeking  to  be  governesses,  and  capable  of  giving 
varied  instruction,  are  expected  to  be  satisfied  with  the  wages  and 
treatment  of  scullions,  and  find  it  difficult  to  obtain  situations  evQn 
on  such  terms.  It  is  in  such  facts  as  these  that  we  must  find  the 
causes  of  those  given  in  the  above  paragraph. 

*  The  import  of  1850  was  103,718  Ibs.,  and  that  of  1852,  251,792  Ibs. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  233 

If  we  desire  to  find  the  character  of  the  young  we  must  look  to 
that  of  the  aged,  and  especially  to  that  of  the  mothers.  We  see 
here  something  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  young  women  who 
are  to  supply  the  future  population  of  England ;  and  if  the  charac 
ter  of  the  latter  be  in  accordance  with  that  of  the  former,  with 
what  hope  can  we  look  to  the  future  ? 

Nothing  indicates  more  fully  the  deterioration  resulting  from 
this  unceasing  struggle  for  life,  than  the  harsh  treatment  to  which 
are  subjected  persons  who  need  aid  in  their  distress.  A  case  of 
this  kind,  furnished  by  the  Times,  as  occurring  at  the  Lambeth 
workhouse,  so  strongly  indicates  the  decay  of  kind  and  generous 
feeling,  that,  long  as  it  is,  it  is  here  given  : — 

"  A  poor  creature,  a  young  English  girl — to  be  sure,  she  is  not  a 
black — a  parcel  of  drenched  rags  clinging  to  her  trembling  form,  every 
mark  of  agony  and  despair  in  her  countenance,  lifts  her  hand  to  the 
bell.  She  rings  once  and  again,  and  at  length  the  door-porter  appears, 
accompanied  by  a  person  holding  a  situation  under  the  guardians — 
his  name  is  Brooke — and  he  is  a  policeman.  She  is  starving,  she  is 
pregnant,  and  almost  in  the  pains  of  labour,  but  the  stern  officials  will 
not  take  her  in.  Why?  Because  she  had  been  in  the  workhouse 
until  Tuesday  morning  last,  and  had  then  been  discharged  by  '  order 
of  the  guardians/  Nor  is  this  all.  The  tale  of  parochial  bounty  is 
not  yet  half  told  out.  During  that  long  wet  Tuesday  she  wandered 
about.  She  had  not  a  friend  in  this  great  town  to  whom  she  could 
apply  for  the  smallest  assistance,  and  on  Tuesday  night  she  came  back 
to  implore  once  more  the  kindly  shelter  of  the  parish  workhouse.  For 
yet  that  night  she  was  taken  in,  but  the  next  morning  cast  forth  into 
the  world  again  with  a  piece  of  dry  bread  in  her  hand.  On  Wednesday 
the  same  scene  was  renewed — the  same  fruitless  casting  about  for  food 
and  shelter,  the  same  disappointment,  and  the  same  despair.  But 
parochial  bounty  can  only  go  thus  far,  and  no  farther.  Charity  her 
self  was  worn  out  with  the  importunity  of  this  persevering  pauper,  and 
on  Thursday  night  the  doors  of  the  parish  workhouse  were  finally  and 
sternly  shut  in  her  face. 

"But  she  was  not  alone  in  her  sufferings.  You  might  have  sup 
posed  that  the  misery  of  London — enormous  as  the  amount  of  London 
misery  undoubtedly  is — could  have  shown  no  counterpart  to  the  fright 
ful  position  of  this  unfortunate  creature — without  a  home,  without  a 
friend,  without  a  character,  without  a  shelter,  without  a  bite  of  food — 
betrayed  by  her  seducer,  and  the  mark  for  the  last  twelve  hours  of  the 
floodgates  of  heaven.  *  *  *  Can  it  be  there  are  two  of  them  ?  Yes  ! 
Another  young  woman,  precisely  in  the  same  situation,  knocks  at  the 
same  workhouse  door,  and  is  refused  admittance  by  the  same  stern 
guardians  of  the  ratepayers'  pockets.  The  two  unfortunates  club  their 
anguish  and  their  despair  together,  and  set  forth  in  quest  of  some 
archway  or  place  of  shelter,  beneath  which  they  may  crouch  until  the 

20* 


234 

gas-lamps  are  put  out,  and  the  day  breaks  once  more  upon  their  suffer 
ings.  Well,  on  they  roamed,  until  one  of  the  two,  Sarah  Sherford,  was 
actually  seized  with  the  pangs  of  labour,  when  they  resolved  to  stagger 
back  to  the  workhouse ;  but  again  the  door  was  shut  in  their  faces. 
What  was  to  be  done  ?  They  were  driven  away  from  the  house,  and 
moved  slowly  along,  with  many  a  pause  of  agony,  no  doubt,  until  they 
met  with  a  policeman,  one  Daniel  Donovan,  who  directed  them  to  a 
coffee-house  where  they  might  hope  to  get  shelter.  The  coffee-house 
did  not  open  till  2  o'clock,  when  they  had  two  hours'  shelter.  But  at 
that  hour  they  were  again  cast  out,  as  the  keeper  was  obliged  to  come 
into  the  street  with  his  stall  arid  attend  to  it.  '  At  this  time  (we  will 
here  copy  the  language  of  our  report)  Sherford's  labour  pains  had  con 
siderably  increased,  and  they  again  spoke  to  the  same  policeman, 
Donovan,  and  told  him  that,  unless  she  was  taken  into  the  workhouse 
or  some  other  place,  she  must  give  birth  to  her  infant  in  the  street.' 
Daniel  Donovan  accordingly  conveyed  the  two  unfortunate  creatures 
to  the  workhouse  once  more,  at  4  o'clock  in  the  morning.  '  The  police 
man  on  duty  there,'  said  this  witness,  '  told  him  that  they  had  been 
there  before,  and  seemed  to  have  some  hesitation  about  admitting 
them,  but  on  being  told  that  one  was  in  the  pains  of  labour,  he  let 
them  in.' " 

What  slavery  can  be  worse  than  this  ?  Here  are  young  women, 
women  in  distress,  starving  and  almost  in  the  pains  of  labour,  driven 
about  from  post  to  pillar,  and  from  pillar  to  post,  by  da^y  and  by 
night,  totally  unable  to  obtain  the  smallest  aid.  Assuredly  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  any  thing  to  equal  this  in  any  other  coun 
try  claiming  to  rank  among  the  civilized  nations  of  the  world. 

At  the  moment  of  writing  this  page,  an  English  journal  furnishes 
a  case  of  death  from  starvation,  and  closes  its  account  with  the  fol 
lowing  paragraph,  strikingly  illustrative  of  the  state  of  things  which 
naturally  arises  where  every  man  is  "trying  to  live  by  snatching 
the  bread  from  his  neighbour's  mouth." 

"It  is  hardly  possible  to  conceive  a  more  horrible  case.  A  stalwart, 
strong-framed  man,  in  the  prime  of  life — his  long  pilgrimage  of  martyr 
dom  from  London  to  Stoney-Stratford — his  wretched  appeals  for  help 
to  the  ''civilization"  around  him — his  seven  days  fast — his  brutal 
abandonment  by  his  fellow-men — his  seeking  shelter  and  being  driven 
from  resting-place  to  resting-place — the  crowning  inhumanity  of  the 
person  named  Slade  and  the  patient,  miserable  death  of  the  worn-out 
man — are  a  picture  perfectly  astonishing  to  contemplate. 

"  No  doubt  he  invaded  the  rights  of  property,  when  he  sought  shelter 
in  the  shed  and  in  the  lone  barn ! ! !" 

The  recent  developments  in  regard  to  Bethlem  Hospital  are 
thus  described : — 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  235 

"  Some  of  the  cases  of  cruelty  brought  to  light  by  the  examiners 
are  almost  too  revolting  to  describe.  It  appears  that  the  incurables  arc 
lodged  in  cells  partially  under  ground,  where  their  only  couches  are 
troughs  filled  with  straw  and  covered  with  a  blanket.  On  these  mise 
rable  beds,  worse  than  many  a  man  gives  to  his  horse  or  dog,  the  vic 
tims  lie  in  the  coldest  weather,  without  night-clothes,  frequently  creep 
ing  into  me  straw  in  order  to  keep  warm.  These  poor  unfortunates 
also  are  often  fed  in  a  way  as  disgusting  as  it  is  cruel,  being  laid  on 
their  backs,  and  held  down  by  one  of  the  nurses,  while  another  forces 
into  the  mouth  the  bread  and  milk  which  is  their  allotted  food.  This 
revolting  practice  is  adopted  to  save  time,  for  it  was  proved  on  oath 
that  patients,  thus  treated,  ate  their  meals  by  themselves,  if  allowed 
sufficient  leisure.  The  imbecile  patients,  instead  of  being  bathed  with 
decency,  as  humanity  and  health  demands,  are  thrown  on  the  stone- 
floor,  in  a  state  of  nudity,  and  there  mopped  by  the  nurses.  Such 
things  would  seem  incredible,  if  they  had  not  been  proved  on  oath. 
Some  who  were  not  incurable,  having  been  treated  in  this  manner,  ex 
posed  these  atrocities,  after  their  recovery ;  and  the  result  was  an  in 
vestigation,  which  led  to  the  discovery  of  the  abominable  manner  in 
which  this  vast  charity  has  been  administered/' 

These  things  are  a  necessary  consequence  of  an  universal  trading 
spirit.  For  the  first  time  in  the  annals  of  the  world  it  has  been  pro 
claimed  in  England  that  the  paramount  object  of  desire  with  the  peo 
ple  of  a  great  and  Christian  nation  is  to  buy  cheaply  and  sell  dearly; 
and  when  men  find  themselves,  in  self-defence,  compelled  to  beat 
down  the  poor  sewing-woman  to  a  penny  for  making  a  shirt,  or  the 
poor  flower-girl  to  a  scale  of  wages  so  low  that  she  must  resort  to 
prostitution  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  life,  they  can  neither  be  ex 
pected  to  be  charitable  themselves,  nor  to  tolerate  much  charity  in  the 
public  oflicers  charged  with  the  expenditure  of  their  contributions. 
There  is  consequently  everywhere  to  be  seen  a  degree  of  harshness 
in  the  treatment  of  those  who  have  the  misfortune  to  be  poor,  and 
a  degree  of  contempt  in  the  mode  of  speech  adopted  in  relation  to 
them,  totally  incompatible  with  the  idea  of  advance  in  real  civil 
ization. 


THE  facts  thus  far  given  rest,  as  the  reader  will  have  seen,  on 
the  highest  English  authority.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  study 
them  without  arriving  at  the  conclusion  that  the  labouring  people 
of  England  are  gradually  losing  all  control  over  the  disposition  of 


236  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

their  own  labour — or  in  other  words,  that  they  are  becoming  enslaved 
— and  that  with  the  decay  -of  freedom  there  has  been  a  decay  of  mo 
rality,  such  as  has  been  observed  in  every  other  country  similarly 
circumstanced.  To  ascertain  the  cause  of  this  we  must  refer  again 
to  Adam  Smith,  who  tells  us  that — 

"No  equal  quantity  of  productive  labour  or  capital  employed  in 
manufacture  can  ever  occasion  so  great  a  reproduction  as  if  it  were 
employed  in  agriculture.  In  these,  nature  does  nothing,  man  does  all, 
and  the  reproduction  must  always  be  proportioned  to  the  strength  of 
the  agents  that  occasion  it.  The  capital  employed  in  agriculture,  there 
fore,  not  only  puts  into  motion  a  greater  quantity  of  productive  labour 
than  any  equal  capital  employed  in  manufacture;  but,  in  proportion, 
too,  to  the  quantity  of  productive  labour  which  it  employs,  it  adds  a 
much  greater  value  to  the  annual  value  of  the  land  and  labour  of  the 
country,  to  the  real  wealth  and  revenue  of  its  inhabitants.  Of  all  the 
ways  which  a  capital  can  be  employed,  it  is  by  far  the  most  advanta 
geous  to  society." 

This  is  the  starting  point  of  his  whole  system,  and  is  directly  the 
opposite  of  that  from  which  starts  the  modern  English  politico-eco 
nomical  school  that  professes  to  follow  in  his  footsteps,  as  will  now 
be  shown.  The  passage  here  given,  which  really  constitutes  the 
base  upon  which  rests  the  whole  structure  of  Dr.  Smith's  work,  is 
regarded  by  Mr.  McCulloch  as  "the  most  objectionable"  one  in  it, 
and  he  expresses  great  surprise  that  uso  acute  and  sagacious  a 
reasoner  should  have  maintained  a  doctrine  so  manifestly  erroneous." 
"  So  far  indeed,"  says  that  gentleman — 

"  Is  it  from  being  true  that  nature  does  much  for  man  in  agricul 
ture,  and  nothing  for  manufactures,  that  the  fact  is  more  nearly  the 
reverse.  There  are  no  limits  to  the  bounty  of  nature  in  manufactures ; 
but  there  are  limits,  and  those  not  very  remote,  to  her  bounty  in  agri 
culture.  The  greatest  possible  amount  of  capital  might  be  expended 
in  the  construction  of  steam-engines,  or  of  any  other  sort  of  machinery, 
and  after  they  had  been  multiplied  indefinitely,  the  last  would  be  as 
prompt  and  efficient  in  producing  commodities  and  saving  labour  as 
the  first.  Such,  however,  is  not  the  case  with  the  soil.  Lands  of  the 
first  quality  are  speedily  exhausted ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  apply  capi 
tal  indefinitely  even  to  the  best  soils,  without  obtaining  from  it  a  con 
stantly  diminishing  rate  of  profit." — Principles  of  Political  Economy. 

The  error  here  results  from  the  general  error  of  Mr.  Ricardo's 
system,  which  places  the  poor  cultivator  among  the  rich  soils  of  the 
swamps  and  river-bottoms,  and  sends  his  rich  successors  to  the 
poor  soils  of  the  hills, — being  directly  the  reverse  of  what  has  hap- 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  237 

pened  in  every  country  of  the  world,  in  every  county  in  England, 
and  on  every  farm  in  each  and  all  of  those  counties.*  Had  he 
not  been  misled  by  the  idea  of  "  the  constantly  increasing  sterility 
of  the  soil,"  Mr.  McCulloch  could  not  have  failed  to  see  that  the 
only  advantage  resulting  from  the  use  of  the  steam-engine,  or  the 
loom,  or  any  other  machine  in  use  for  the  conversion  of  the  pro 
ducts  of  the  earth,  was,  that  it  diminished  the  quantity  of  labour 
required  to  be  so  applied,  and  increased  the  quantity  that  might  be 
given  to  the  work  of  production. 

It  is  quite  true  that  wheelbarrows  and  carts,  wagons  and  ships, 
may  be  increased  indefinitely ;  but  of  what  use  can  they  possibly  be, 
unless  the  things  to  be  carried  be  first  produced,  and  whence  can 
those  things  be  obtained  except  from  the  earth  ?  The  grist-mill  is 
useful,  provided  there  is  grain  to  be  ground,  but  not  otherwise. 
The  cotton-mill  would  be  useless  unless  the  cotton  was  first  pro 
duced.  Agriculture  must  precede  manufactures,  and  last  of  all, 
says  Dr.  Smith,  comes  foreign  commerce.f 

The  reader  has  had  before  him  a  passage  from  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill 
in  which  that  gentleman  says  that  "  if  the  law  [of  the  occupation 
of  the  land]  were  different,  almost  all  the  phenomena  of  the  pro 
duction  and  distribution  of  wealth  would  be  different  from  what 
they  now  are."  In  the  days  of  Adam  Smith  it  had  not  yet  been 
suggested  that  men  began  by  the  cultivation  of  rich  soils,  and  then 
passed  to  poor  ones,  with  constantly  diminishing  power  to  obtain 
food.  Population,  therefore,  had  not  come  to  be  regarded  as  "  a  nui 
sance"  to  be  abated  by  any  measures,  however  revolting,  and  im 
posing  upon  Christian  men  the  necessity  of  hardening  their  hearts, 
and  permitting  their  fellow-men  to  suffer  every  extremity  of  poverty 
and  distress  "  short  of  absolute  death,"  with  a  view  to  bring  about 
a  necessity  for  refraining  to  gratify  that  natural  inclination  which 
leads  men  and  women  to  associate  in  the  manner  tending  to  pro 
mote  the  growth  of  numbers  and  the  development  of  the  best  feel- 


*  The  reader  who  may  desire  to  see  this  more  fully  exhibited  is  referred  to  the 
author's  work,  "  The  Past,  the  Present,  and  the  Future." 
f  See  page  59,  ante. 


238  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

ings  of  the  human  heart.  It  was  then  considered  right  that  men  and 
women  should  marry,  and  increase  of  population  was  regarded  as 
evidence  of  increased  wealth  and  strength.  Dr.  Smith,  therefore, 
looked  at  the  affairs  of  the  world  as  they  were,  and  he  saw  that  the 
production  of  commodities  not  only  preceded  their  conversion  and 
exchange,  but  that  in  the  work  of  production  the  earth  aided  man  by 
increasing  the  quantity  of  things  to  be  consumed;  whereas  labour  ap 
plied  in  other  ways  could  change  them  only  in  their  form  or  in  their 
place,  making  no  addition  to  their  quantity.  He,  therefore,  saw 
clearly  that  the  nearer  the  spinner  and  the  weaver  came  to  the 
producer  of  food  and  wool,  the  more  would  be  the  quantity  of  food 
and  cloth  to  be  divided  between  them ;  and  thus  was  he  led  to  se<s 
how  great  an  act  of  injustice  it  was  on  the  part  of  his  countrymen 
to  endeavour  to  compel  the  people  of  the  world  to  send  their  raw 
materials  to  them  to  be  converted,  at  such  vast  loss  of  transporta 
tion.  He  had  no  faith  in  the  productive  power  of  ships  or  wagons. 
He  knew  that  the  barrel  of  flour  or  the  bale  of  cotton,  put  into  the 
ship,  came  out  a  barrel  of  flour  or  a  bale  of  cotton,  the  weight  of 
neither  having  been  increased  by  the  labour  employed  in  trans 
porting  it  from  the  place  of  production  to  that  of  consumption. 
He  saw  clearly  that  to  place  the  consumer  by  the  side  of  the  pro 
ducer  was  to  economize  labour  and  aid  production,  and  therefore  to 
increase  the  power  to  trade.  He  was,  therefore,  in  favour  of  the 
local  application  of  labour  and  capital,  by  aid  of  which  towns 
should  grow  up  in  the  midst  of  producers  of  food ;  and  he  believed 
that  if  "  human  institutions"  had  not  been  at  war  with  the  best 
interests  of  man,  those  towns  would  "  nowhere  have  increased  be 
yond  what  the  improvement  and  cultivation  of  the  territory  in 
which  they  were  situated  could  support."  Widely  different  is  all 
this  from  the  system  which  builds  up  London,  Liverpool,  Man 
chester,  and  Birmingham,  to  be  the  manufacturing  centres  of  the 
world,  and  urges  upon  all  nations  the  adoption  of  a  system  looking 
directly  to  their  maintenance  and  increase  ! 

Directly  opposed  in  this  respect  to  Dr.  Smith,  Mr.  McCulloch 
has  unbounded  faith  in  the  productive  power  of  ships  and  wagons 
To  him— 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  230 

"  It  is  plain  that  the  capital  and  labour  employed  in  carrying  com 
modities  from  where  they  are  to  be  produced  to  where  they  are  to  be 
consumed,  and  in  dividing  them  into  minute  portions  so  as  to  fit  tha 
wants  of  consumers,  are  really  as  productive  as  if  they  were  employed 
in  agriculture  or  in  manufactures." — Principles,  106. 

The  man  who  carries  the  food  adds,  as  he  seems  to  think,  as  much  to 
the  quantity  to  be  consumed  as  did  the  one  who  ploughed  the  ground 
and  sowed  the  seed ;  and  he  who  stands  at  the  counter  measuring 
cloth  adds  as  much  to  the  quantity  of  cloth  as  did  he  who  produced 
it.  No  benefit,  in  his  view,  results  from  any  saving  of  the  labour 
of  transportation  or  exchange.  He  has,  therefore,  no  faith  in  the 
advantage  to  be  derived  from  the  local  application  of  labour  or 
capital.  He  believes  that  it  matters  nothing  to  the  farmer  of  Ire 
land  whether  his  food  be  consumed  on  the  farm  or  at  a  distance 
from  it — whether  his  grass  be  fed  on  the  land  or  carried  to  market 
— whether  the  manure  be  returned  to  the  land  or  wasted  on  the 
road — whether,  of  course,  the  land  be  impoverished  or  enriched. 
He  is  even  disposed  to  believe  that  it  is  frequently  more  to  the 
advantage  of  the  people  of  that  country  that  the  food  there  pro 
duced  should  be  divided  among  the  labourers  of  France  or  Italy 
than  among  themselves.*  He  believes  in  the  advantage  of  large 
manufacturing  towns  at  a  distance  from  those  who  produce  the 
food  and  raw  materials  of  manufacture  ;  and  that  perfect  freedom 
of  trade  consists  in  the  quiet  submission  of  the  farmers  and 
planters  of  the  world  to  the  working  of  a  system  which  Dr.  Smith 
regarded  as  tending  so  greatly  to  "  the  discouragement  of  agricul 
ture,"  that  it  was  the  main  object  of  his  work  to  teach  the  people 
of  Britain  that  it  was  not  more  unjust  to  others  than  injurious  to 
themselves. 


*  "  It  may  be  doubted,  considering  the  circumstances  under  which  most  Irish 
landlords  acquired  their  estates,  the  difference  between  their  religious  tenets  and 
those  of  their  tenants,  the  peculiar  tenures  under  which  the  latter  hold  their 
lands,  and  the  political  condition  of  the  country,  whether  their  residence  would 
have  been  of  any  considerable  advantage.  *  *  *  The  question  really  at 
issue  refers  merely  to  the  spending  of  revenue,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
improvement  of  estates;  and  notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said  to  the  con 
trary,  I  am  not  yet  convinced  that  absenteeism  is,  in  this  respect,  at  all  injurious." 
— Principles,  157.  N 


240  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

In  a  work  just  issued  from  the  press,  Mr.  McCulloch  tells  his 
readers  that — 

"For  the  reasons  now  stated,  a  village  built  in  the  immediate  vicinity 
of  a  gentleman's  seat  generally  declines  on  his  becoming  an  absentee. 
That,  however,  is  in  most  cases  any  thing  but  an  injury.  The  inhabit 
ants  of  such  villages  are  generally  poor,  needy  dependants,  destitute 
of  any  invention,  and  without  any  wish  to  distinguish  themselves.  But 
when  the  proprietors  are  elsewhere,  they  are  forced  to  trust  to  their 
own  resources,  and  either  establish  some  sort  of  manufacture,  or  resort 
to  those  manufacturing  and  commercial  cities  where  there  is  always  a 
ready  demand  for  labourers,  and  where  every  latent  spark  of  genius  is 
sure  to  be  elicited.  Although,  therefore,  it  be  certainly  true  that  ab 
senteeism  has  a  tendency  to  reduce  the  villages  which  are  found  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  residences  of  extensive  proprietors,  it  is  not  on 
that  account  prejudicial  to  the  country  at  large,  but  the  reverse."* 

It  is  here  seen  that  the  people  who  own  large  estates  are  sup 
posed  to  be  surrounded  by  "  poor  and  needy  dependants,"  who  are 
to  be  stimulated  to  exertion  by  the  pressure  of  want,  and  that  this 
pressure  is  to  be  produced  by  the  absenteeism  of  the  proprietor. 
"We  have  here  the  master  administering  the  lash  to  his  poor  slave, 
and  the  only  difference  between  the  English  master  and  the  Ja 
maica  one  appears  to  be,  that  absenteeism  in  the  one  case  forces 
the  poor  labourer  to  seek  the  lanes  and  alleys  of  a  great  city,  and 
in  the  other  causes  him  to  be  worked  to  death.  The  slavery  of  Ire 
land,  Jamaica,  and  India  is  a  natural  consequence  of  the  absentee 
ism  of  the  great  land-owners;  and  the  larger  the  properties,  the 
greater  must  be  the  tendency  to  absenteeism,  centralization,  and 
slavery;  and  yet  Mr.  McCulloch  assures  his  readers  that 

"  The  advantage  of  preserving  large  estates  from  being  frittered 
down  by  a  scheme  of  equal  division  is  not  limited  to  its  effects  on  the 
younger  children  of  their  owners.  It  raises  universally  the  standard 
of  competence,  and  gives  new  force  to  the  springs  which  set  industry 
in  motion.  The  manner  of  living  in  great  landlords  is  that  in  which 
every  one  is  ambitious  of  being  able  to  indulge  ;  and  their  habits  of  ex 
pense,  though  somewhat  injurious  to  themselves,  act  as  powerful  incen 
tives  to  the  ingenuity  and  enterprise  of  other  classes,  who  never  think 
their  fortunes  sufficiently  ample  unless  they  will  enable  them  to  emu 
late  the  splendour  of'the  richest  landlords  ;  so  that  the  custom  of  primo 
geniture  seems  to  render  all  classes  more  industrious,  and  to  augment  at 
the  same  time  the  mass  of  wealth  and  the  scale  of  enjoyment/' — Principles. 


*  Treatises  and  Essays  on  Subjects  connected  with  Economical  Policy. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  241 

The  modern  system  tends  necessarily  to  the  consolidation  of 
land,  and  the  more  completely  that  object  can  be  attained,  the 
greater  must  be  "  the  splendour  of  the  richest  landlords,"  the 
greater  the  habits  of  expense  among  the  few,  the  greater  their 
power  to  absent  themselves,  the  greater  the  power  of  the  rapa 
cious  middleman  or  agent,  the  greater  the  poverty  and  squalor  of 
"  the  poor  and  needy  dependants,"  and  the  greater  the  necessity 
for  seeking  shelter  in  the  cellars  of  Manchester,  the  wynds  of 
Glasgow,  or  the  brothels  of  London  and  Liverpool;  but  the  larger 
must  be  the  supply  of  the  commodity  called  "  cheap  labour."  In 
other  words,  slaves  will  be  more  numerous,  and  masters  will  be 
more  able  to  decide  on  what  shall  be  the  employment  of  the  la 
bourer,  and  what  shall  be  its  reward. 

Adam  Smith  knew  nothing  of  all  this.  He  saw  that  capital 
was  always  best  managed  by  its  owner,  and  therefore  had  no  faith 
in  a  universal  system  of  agencies.  He  saw  that  the  little  pro 
prietor  was  by  far  the  greatest  improver,  and  he  had  no  belief  in 
the  advantage  of  great  farmers  surrounded  by  day-labourers.  He 
believed  in  the  advantage  of  making  twelve  exchanges  in  a  year  in 
place  of  one,  and  he  saw  clearly  that  the  nearer  the  consumer  could 
come  to  the  producer  the  larger  and  more  profitable  would  be  com 
merce.  He  therefore  taught  that  the  workman  should  go  to  the 
place  where,  food  being  abundant,  moderate  labour  would  command 
much  food.  His  successors  teach  that  the  food  should  come  to  the 
place  where,  men  being  abundant  and  food  scarce,  much  labour  will 
command  little  food,  and  that  when  population  has  thus  been  ren 
dered  superabundant,  tfhe  surplus  should  go  abroad  to  raise  more 
food  for  the  supply  of  those  they  left  behind.  The  one  teaches  the 
concentration  of  man,  and  the  local  division  of  labour.  The  other, 
the  dispersion  of  man,  and  the  territorial  division  of  labour.  They 
differ  thus  in  every  thing,  except  that  they  both  use  the  word  free 
\rade — but  with  reference  to  totally  distinct  ideas.  With  the  one, 
COMMERCE  has  that  enlarged  signification  which  embraces  every 
description  of  intercourse  resulting  from  the  exercise  of  "man's 
natural  inclination"  for  association,  while  with  the  other  TRADE 
has  reference  to  no  idea  beyond  that  of  the  mere  pedler  who  buys 

21 


242  THE    SLAVE,  TRADE, 

in  the  cheapest  market  and  sells  in  the  dearest  one.  The  system 
of  the  one  is  perfectly  harmonious,  and  tends  toward  peace  among 
men.  The  other  is  a  mass  of  discords,  tending  toward  war  among 
the  men  and  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

As  ordinarily  used,  the  word  Commerce  has  scarcely  any  signifi 
cation  except  that  of  trade  with  distant  men,  and  yet  that  is  the 
least  profitable  commerce  that  can  be  maintained, — as  the  reader  may 
satisfy  himself  if  he  will  reflect  that  when  the  miller  and  the 
farmer  are  near  neighbours  they  divide  between  them  all  the  flour 
that  is  made,  whereas,  when  they  are  widely  separated,  a  third 
man,  the  carrier,  intervenes  between  them  and  takes  a  large  por 
tion  of  it,  leaving  less  to  be  divided  between  those  who  raise  the 
wheat  and  those  who  convert  it  into  flour.  The  more  perfect  the 
power  of  association  the  greater  must  be  the  power  to  maintain 
commerce,  for  every  act  of  association  is  an  act  of  commerce,  as  it 
is  proposed  now  to  show,  beginning  at  the  beginning,  in  the  family, 
which  long  precedes  the  nation.  Doing  so,  we  find  the  husband 
exchanging  his  services  in  the  raising  of  food  and  the  materials  of 
clothing,  for  those  of  his  wife,  employed  in  the  preparation  of  food 
for  the  table,  and  the  conversion  of  raw  materials  into  clothing, — 
and  here  it  is  we  find  the  greatest  of  all  trades.  Of  all  the  labour 
employed  on  the  farms  and  in  the  farm-houses  of  the  Union,  we 
should,  could  we  have  an  accurate  statement,  find  that  the  propor 
tion  of  its  products  exchanged  beyond  their  own  limits,  scarcely 
exceeded  one-third,  and  was  certainly  far  less  than  one-half,  the 
remainder  being  given  to  the  raising  of  food  and  raw  materials  for 
their  own  consumption,  and  the  conversion  of  that  food  and  those 
materials  into  the  forms  fitting  them  for  their  own  uses. 

At  the  next  step  we  find  ourselves  in  the  little  -community,  of 
which  the  owner  of  this  farm  constitutes  a  portion ;  and  here  we 
find  the  farmer  exchanging  his  wheat  with  one  neighbour  for  a  day's 
labour — the  use  of  his  wagon  and  his  horse  for  other  days  of  labour — 
his  potatoes  with  a  third  for  the  shoeing  of  his  horse,  and  with  a 
fourth  for  the  shoeing  of  himself  and  his  children,  or  the  making 
of  his  coat.  On  one  day  he  or  his  family  have  labour  to  spare, 
and  they  pass  it  off  to  a  neighbour  to  be  repaid  by  him  in  laboui 


DOMESTIC    AND   FOREIGN.  243 

on  another  day.  One  requires  aid  in  the  spring,  the  other  in  the 
autumn;  one  gives  a  day's  labour  in  hauling  lumber,  in  exchange 
for  that  of  another  employed  in  mining  coal  or  iron  ore.  Another 
trades  the  labour  that  has  been  employed  in  the  purchase  of  a 
plough  for  that  of  his  neighbour  which  had  been  applied  to  the 
purchase  of  a  cradle.  Exchanges  being  thus  made  on,  the  spot, 
from  hour  to  hour  and  from  day  to  day,  with  little  or  no  interven 
tion  of  persons  whose  business  is  trade,  their  amount  is  large,  and, 
combined  with  those  of  the  family,  equals  probably  four-fifths  of 
the  total  product  of  the  labour  of  the  community,  leaving  not  more 
than  one-fifth  to  be  traded  off  with  distant  men ;  and  this  propor 
tion  is  often  greatly  diminished  as  with  increasing  population  and 
wealth  a  market  is  made  on  the  land  for  the  products  of  the 
land. 

This  little  community  forms  part  of  a  larger  one,  styled  a  nation, 
the  members  of  which  are  distant  hundreds  or  thousands  of  miles 
from  each  other,  and  here  we  find  difficulties  tending  greatly  to 
limit  the  power  to  trade.  The  man  in  latitude  40°  may  have  la 
bour  to  sell  for  which  he  can  find  no  purchaser,  while  he  who  lives 
in  latitude  50°  is  at  the  moment  grieving  to  see  his  crop  perish  on 
the  ground  for  want  of  aid  in  harvest.  The  first  may  have 
potatoes  rotting,  and  his  wagon  and  horses  idle,  while  the  second 
may  need  potatoes,  and  have  his  lumber  on  his  hands  for  want 
of  means  of  transportation — yet  distance  forbids  exchange  between 
them. 

Again,  this  nation  forms  part  of  a  world,  the  inhabitants  of 
which  are  distant  tens  of  thousands  of  miles  from  each  other,  and 
totally  unable  to  effect  exchanges  of  labour,  or  even  of  commodities, 
except  of  certain  kinds  that  will  bear  transportation  to  distant 
markets.  Commerce  tends,  therefore,  to  diminish  in  its  amount- 
with  every  circumstance  tending  to  increase  the  necessity  for  going 
to  a  distance,  and  to  increase  in  amount  with  every  one  tending  to 
diminish  the  distance  within  which  it  must  be  maintained.  As  it 
now  stands  with  the  great  farming  interest  of  the  Union,  the  pro 
portions  are  probably  as  follows  : — 


244  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

Exchanges  in  the  family 55  per  cent. 

"         in  the  neighbourhood 25         " 

"         in  the  nation 15         " 

"         with  other  nations...  ..  5        " 


Total 100 

It  will  now  be  obvious  that  any  law,  domestic  or  foreign,  tending 
to  interfere  with  the  exchanges  of  the  family  or  the  neighbourhood, 
would  be  of  more  serious  importance  than  one  that  should,  to  the 
same  extent,  affect  those  with  the  rest  of  the  nation,  and  that  one 
which  should  affect  the  trade  of  one  part  of  the  nation  with  another, 
would  be  more  injurious  than  one  which  should  tend  to  limit  the 
trade  with  distant  nations.  Japan  refuses  to  have  intercourse  with 
either  Europe  or  America,  yet  this  total  interdiction  of  trade  with 
a  great  empire  is  less  important  to  the  farmers  of  the  Union  than 
would  be  the  imposition  of  a  duty  of  one  farthing  a  bushel  upon 
the  vegetable  food  raised  on  their  farms  to  be  consumed  in  their 
families. 

The  great  trade  is  the  home  trade,  and  the  greater  the  tendency 
to  the  performance  of  trade  at  home  the  more  rapid  will  be  the  in 
crease  of  prosperity,  and  the  greater  the  power  to  effect  exchanges 
abroad.  The  reason  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
power  of  production  increases  with  the  power  of  combined  exertion, 
and  all  combination  is  an  exchange  of  labour  for  labour,  the  ex 
change  being  made  at  home.  The  more  exchanges  are  thus  effected 
the  smaller  is  the  number  of  the  men,  wagons,  ships,  or  sailors  em 
ployed  in  making  them,  and  the  greater  the  number  of  persons  em 
ployed  in  the  work  of  production,  with  increase  in  the  quantity  of 
commodities  produced,  and  the  power  to  exchange  grows  with  the 
power  to  produce,  while  the  power  to  produce  diminishes  with  every 
increase  in  the  necessity  for  exchange.  Again,  when  the  work  of  ex 
change  is  performed  at  home,  the  power  of  combination  facilitates 
the  disposal  of  a  vast  amount  of  labour  that  would  otherwise  be 
wasted,  and  an  infinite  number  of  things  that  would  otherwise  have 
no  value  whatever,  but  which,  combined  with  the  labour  that  is 
saved,  are  quite  sufficient  to  make  one  community  rich  by  com 
parison  with  another  in  which  such  savings  cannot  be  effected. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  245 

Virginia  wastes  more  labour  and  more  commodities  that  would 
have  value  in  New  England,  than  would  pay  five  times  over  for  all 
the  cloth  and  iron  she  consumes. 

Again,  the  quantity  of  capital  required  for  effecting  exchanges 
tends  to  diminish  as  commerce  comes  nearer  home.  The  ship  that 
goes  to  China  performs  no  more  exchanges  in  a  year  than  the 
canal-boat  that  trades  from  city  to  city  performs  in  a  month ;  and 
the  little  and  inexpensive  railroad  car  passing  from  village  to  village 
may  perform  almost  twice  as  many  as  the  fine  packet-ship  that 
has  cost  ninety  or  a  hundred  thousand  dollars.  With  the  exten 
sion  of  the  home  trade,  labour  and  capital  become,  therefore,  more* 
productive  of  commodities  required  for  the  support  and  comfort  of 
man,  and  the  wages  of  the  labourer  and  the  profits  of  the  capitalist 
tend  to  increase,  and  commerce  tends  still  further  to  increase.  On 
the  other  hand,  with  the  diminution  of  the  power  to  effect  exchanges 
at  home,  labour  and  capital  become  less  productive  of  commodities; 
the  wages  of  the  labourer  and  the  profits  of  the  capitalist  tend  to 
decrease,  and  trade  tends  still  further  to  diminish.  All  this  will  be 
found  fully  exemplified  among  ourselves  on  a  comparison  of  the  years 
1835-36  with  1841-42,  while  the  contrary  and  upward  tendency  is 
exemplified  by  the  years  1845-6  and  7,  as  compared  with  1841-2. 

The  fashionable  doctrine  of  our  day  is,  however,  that  the  pros 
perity  of  a  nation  is  to  be  measured  by  the  amount  of  its  trade 
with  people  who  are  distant,  as  manifested  by  custom-house  returns, 
and  not  by  the  quantity  of  exchanges  among  persons  who  live  near 
each  other,  and  who  trade  without  the  intervention  of  ships, 
and  with  little  need  of  steamboats  or  wagons.  If  the  trade  of  a 
neighbourhood  be  closed  by  the  failure  of  a  furnace  or  a  mill,  and 
the  workman  be  thus  deprived  of  the  power  to  trade  off  the  labour 
of  himself  or  his  children,  or  the  farmer  deprived  of  the  power  tc 
trade  off  his  food,  consolation  is  found  in  the  increased  quantity 
of  exports — itself,  perhaps,  the  direct  consequence  of  a  diminished 
ability  to  consume  at  home.  If  canal-boats  cease  to  be  built,  the 
nation  is  deemed  to  be  enriched  by  the  substitution  of  oceau 
steamers  requiring  fifty  times  the  capital  for  the  performance  of 
the  same  quantity  of  exchanges.  If  the  failure  of  mills  and  fur- 


246  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

naces  causes  men  to  be  thrown  out  of  employment,  the  remedy  i.s 
to  be  found,  not  in  the  revisal  of  the  measures  that  have  produced 
these  effects,  but  in  the  exportation  of  the  men  themselves  to  dis 
tant  climes,  thus  producing  a  necessity  for  the  permanent  use  of  ships 
instead  of  canal-boats,  with  diminished  power  to  maintain  trade,  and 
every  increase  of  this  necessity  is  regarded  as  an  evidence  of  growing 
Wealth  and  power. 

The  whole  tendency  of  modern  commercial  policy  is  to  the  sub 
stitution  of  the  distant  market  for  the  near  one.  England  exports 
her  people  to  Australia  that  they  may  there  grow  the  wool  that 
might  be  grown  at  home  more  cheaply;  and  we  export  to  California, 
by  hundreds  of  thousands,  men  who  enjoy  themselves  in  hunting 
gold,  leaving  behind  them  untouched  the  real  gold-mines — those  of 
coal  and  iron — in  which  their  labour  would  be  thrice  more  pro 
ductive.  The  reports  of  a  late  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  abound 
in  suggestions  as  to  the  value  of  the  distant  trade.  Steam-ships 
were,  he  thought,  needed  to  enable  us  to  obtain  the  control  of  the 
commerce  of  China  and  Japan.  "  With  our  front  on  both  oceans 
and  the  gulf,"  it  was  thought,  "  we  might  secure  this  commerce, 
and  with  it,  in  time,  command  the  trade  of  the  world."  England, 
not  to  be  outdone  in  this  race  for  "  the  commerce  of  the  world," 
adds  steadily  to  her  fleet  of  ocean  steamers,  and  the  government 
contributes  its  aid  for  their  maintenance,  by  the  payment  of  enor 
mous  sums  withdrawn  from  the  people  at  home,  and  diminishing 
the  home  market  to  thrice  the  extent  that  it  increases  the  foreign 
one.  The  latest  accounts  inform  us  of  new  arrangements  about  to 
be  made  with  a  view  to  competition  with  this  country  for  the 
passenger  traffic  to  and  within  the  tropics,  while  the  greatest  of  all 
trades  now  left  to  British  ships  is  represented  to  be  the  transport 
of  British  men,  women,  and  children,  so  heavily  taxed  at  home 
for  the  maintenance  of  this  very  system  that  they  are  compelled  to 
seek  an  asylum  abroad.  In  all  this  there  is  nothing  like  freedom 
of  trade,  or  freedom  of  man;  as  the  only  real  difference  between 
the  freeman  and  the  slave  is,  that  the  former  exchanges  himself,  his 
labour  and  his  products,  while  the  latter  must  permit  another  to  do 
it  for  him. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  247 

Mr.  McCulloch  regards  himself  as  a  disciple  of  Adam  Smith, 
and  so  does  Lord  John  Russell.  We,  too,  are  his  disciple,  but 
in  The  Wealth  of  Nations  can  find  no  warrant  for  the  system  advo 
cated  by  either.  The  system  of  Dr.  Smith  tended  to  the  produc 
tion  of  that  natural  freedom  of  trade,  each  step  toward  which  would 
have  been  attended  with  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  people, 
and  increase  in  the  power  to  trade,  thus  affording  proof  conclusive 
of  the  soundness  of  the  doctrine }  whereas  every  step  in  the  direc 
tion  now  known  as  free  trade  is  attended  with  deterioration  of  con 
dition,  and  increased  necessity  for  trade,  with  diminished  power  to 
trade.  Those  who  profess  to  be  his  followers  and  suppose  that 
they  are  carrying  out  his  principles,  find  results  directly  the  reverse 
of  their  anticipations ;  and  the  reason  for  this  may  readily  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  the  English  school  of  political  economists  long  since 
repudiated  the  whole  of  the  system  of  Dr.  Smith,  retaining  of  it 
little  more  than  fhe  mere  words  u  free  trade." 

The  basis  of  all  commerce  is  to  be  found  in  production,  and 
therefore  it  was  that  Dr.  Smith  looked  upon  agriculture,  the 
science  of  production,  as  the  first  pursuit  of  man,  and  manufactures 
and  commerce  as  beneficial  only  to  the  extent  that  they  tended 
to  aid  agriculture  and  increase  the  quantity  of  commodities  to  be 
converted  or  exchanged,  preparatory  to  their  being  consumed.  He 
held,  therefore,  that  the  return  to  labour  would  be  greater  in  a 
trade  in  which  exchanges  could  be  made  once  a  month  than  in 
another  in  which  they  could  only  be  made  once  in  a  year,  and  he 
was  opposed  to  the  system  then  in  vogue,  because  it  had,  "  in  all 
cases,"  turned  trade, 

"  From  a  foreign  trade  of  consumption  with  a  neighbouring,  into  one 
•with  a  more  distant,  country ;  in  many  cases,  from  a  direct  foreign  trade 
of  consumption,  into  a  round-about  one;  and  in  some  cases,  from  all 
foreign  trade  of  consumption,  into  a  carrying  trade.  It  has  in  all  cases, 
therefore,"  he  continues,  "  turned  it  from  a  direction  in  which  it  would 
have  maintained  a  greater  quantity  of  productive  labour,  into  one  in 
which  it  can  maintain  a  much  smaller  quantity." 

All  this  is  directly  the  reverse  of  what  is  taught  by  the  modern 
British  economists;  and  we  have  thus  two  distinct  schools,  that 
of  Adam  Smith  and  that  of  his  successors.  The  one  taught  that 


248  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

labour  directly  applied  to  production  was  most  advantageous,  and 
that  by  bringing  the  consumer  to  take  his  place  by  the  side  of  the 
producer,  production  and  the  consequent  power  to  trade  would  be 
increased.  The  other  teaches,  that  every  increase  of  capital  cr 
labour  applied  to  production  must  be  attended  with  diminished  re 
turn,  whereas  ships  and  steam-engines  may  be  increased  ad  infini- 
tum  without  such  diminution:  the  necessary  inference  from  which 
is,  that  the  more  widely  the  consumer  and  the  producer  are  sepa 
rated,  with  increased  necessity  for  the  use  of  ships  and  engines, 
the  more  advantageously  labour  will  be  applied,  and  the  greater 
will  be  the  power  to  trade.  The  two  systems  start  from  a  differ 
ent  base,  and  tend  in  an  opposite  direction,  and  yet  the  modern 
school  claims  Dr.  Smith  as  founder.  While  teaching  a  theory  of 
production  totally  different,  Mr.  McCulloch  informs  us  that  "  the 
fundamental  principles  on  which  the  production  of  wealth  depends" 
were  established  by  Dr.  Smith,  "  beyond  the  reach  of  cavil  or  dis 
pute." 

The  difference  between  the  two  schools  may  be  thus  illustrated  : 
Dr.  Smith  regarded  commerce  as  forming  a  true  pyramid,  thus — 

Exchanges  abroad. 

Exchanges    at   home. 

Conversion  into  cloth  and  iron. 

Production  of  food  and  other  raw  materials. 

This  is  in  exact  accordance  with  what  we  know  to  be  true ;  but 
according  to  the  modern  school,  commerce  forms  an  inverted  pyra 
mid,  thus — 

Exchanges   with   distant   men. 

Exchanges    at   home. 

Conversion. 

Production. 

The  difference  between  these  figures  is  great,  but  not  greater 
than  that  between  two  systems,  the  one  of  which  regards  the  earth 
as  the  great  and  perpetually  improving  machine  to  which  the  labour 
ot  man  may  be  profitably  applied,  while  the  other  gives  precedence 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  249 

to  those  very  minute  and  perpetually  deteriorating  portions  of  it 
which  go  to  the  construction  of  ships,  wagons,  and  steam-engines. 
An  examination  of  these  figures  will  perhaps  enable  the  reader  to 
understand  the  cause  of  the  unsteadiness  observed  wherever  the 
modern  system  is  adopted. 


IT  will  be  easy  now  to  see  why  it  is  that  the  commercial  policy 
of  England  has  always  been  so  diametrically  opposed  to  that  advo 
cated  by  the  author  of  The  Wealth  of  Nations.  He  saw  clearly 
that  the  man  and  the  easily  transported  spindle  should  go  to  the 
food  and  the  cotton,  and  that,  when  once  there,  they  were  there 
for  ever;  whereas  the  bulky  food  and  cotton  might  be  transported 
to  the  man  and  the  spindle  for  a  thousand  years,  and  that  the  ne 
cessity  for  transportation  in  the  thousand  and  first  would  be  as 
great  as  it  had  been  in  the  first ;  and  that  the  more  transportation 
was  needed,  the  less  food  and  cloth  would  fall  to  the  share  of  both 
producer  and  consumer.  His  countrymen  denied  the  truth  of  this, 
and  from  that  day  to  the  present  they  have  endeavoured  to  prevent 
the  other  nations  of  the  world  from  obtaining  machinery  of  any 
kind  that  would  enable  them  to  obtain  the  aid  of  those  natural 
agents  which  they  themselves  regard  as  more  useful  than  the  earth 
itself.  a  The  power  of  water/'  says  Mr.  McCulloch — 

"And  of  wind,  which  move  our  machinery,  support  our  ships,  and 
impel  them  over  the  deep — the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere,  and  the 
elasticity  of  steam,  which  enables  us  to  work  the  most  powerful  en 
gines,  are  they  not  the  spontaneous  gifts  of  nature?  Machinery  is 
advantageous  only  because  it  gives  us  the  means  of  pressing  some  of 
the  powers  of  nature  into  our  service,  and  of  making  them  perform 
the  principal  part  of  what  we  must  otherwise  have  wholly  performed 
ourselves.  It  navigation,  is  it  possible  to  doubt  that  the  prwers  of 
nature — the  buoyancy  of  the  water,  the  impulse  of  the  wind,  and  the 
polarity  of  the  magnet — contribute  fully  as  much  as  the  labours  of  the 
sailor  to  waft  our  ships  from  one  hemisphere  to  another?  In  bleach 
ing  and  fermentation  the  whole  processes  are  carried  on  by  natural 
agents.  And  it  is  to  the  effects  of  heat  in  softening  and  melting  me 
tals,  in  preparing  our  food,  and  in  warming  our  houses,  that  we  owe 
many  of  our  most  powerful  and  convenient  instruments,  and  that 
these  northern  climates  have  been  made  to '  afford  a  comfortable  hab; 
tation." — Principles,  165. 


250 


THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 


This  is  all  most  true,  but  what  does  it  prove  in  regard  to  British 
policy  ?  Has  not  its  object  been  that  of  preventing  the  people  of 
the  world  from  availing  themselves  of  the  vast  deposites  of  iron  ore 
and  of  fuel  throughout  the  earth,  and  thus  to  deprive  them  of  the 
powor  to  call  to  their  aid  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere  and  the 
elasticity  of  steam  ?  Has  it  not  looked  to  depriving  them  of  all 
power  to  avail  themselves  of  the  natural  agents  required  in  the 
processes  of  bleaching  and  fermentation,  in  softening  woods,  and 
melting  metals,  and  was  not  that  the  object  had  in  view  by  a  dis 
tinguished  statesman,  since  Chancellor  of  England,  when  he  said, 
that  "  the  country  could  well  afford  the  losses  then  resulting  from 
the  exportation  of  manufactured  goods,  as  its  effect  would  be  to 
smother  in  the  cradle  the  manufactures  of  other  nations  ?"  Has 
riot  this  been  the  object  of  every  movement  of  Great  Britain  since 
the  days  of  Adam  Smith,  and  does  not  the  following  diagram  re 
present  exactly  what  would  be  the  state  of  affairs  if  she  could  carry 
into  full  effect  her  desire  to  become  "the  workshop  of  the  world ?" 


Mr.  McCulloch  insists  that  agriculture  is  less  profitable  than 
manufactures  and  trade,  and  his  countrymen  insist  that  all  the 
world  outside  of  England  shall  be  one  great  farm,  leaving  to  Eng 
land  herself  the  use  of  all  the  various  natural  agents  required  in 
manufactures  and  commerce,  that  they  may  remain  poor  while  she 
becomes  rich.  There  is  in  all  this  a  ctegree  of  selfishness  not  to 
be  paralleled,  and  particularly  when  we  reflect  that,  it  involves  a 
necessity  on  the  part  of  all  other  nations  for  abstaining  from  those 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  251 

scientific  pursuits  required  for  the  development  of  the  intellect,  and 
which  so  naturally  accompany  the  habit  of  association  in  towns,  fir 
the  purpose  of  converting  the  food,  the  wool,  the  hides,  and  the 
timber  of  the  farmer  into  clothing  and  furniture  for  his  use.  It  is 
the  policy  of  barbarism,  and  directly  opposed  to  any  advance  in 
civilization,  as  will  be  fully  seen  when  we  examine  into  its  work 
ing  in  reference  to  any  particular  trade  or  country. 

The  annual  average  production  of  cotton  is  probably  seventeen 
hundred  millions  of  pounds,  or  less  than  two  pounds  per  head  for 
the  population  of  the  world,  and  certainly  not  one-tenth  of  what 
would  be  consumed  could  they  find  means  to  pay  for  it,  and  not 
one-tenth  of  what  would  be  good  for  them ;  and  yet  it  is  a  drug, 
selling  in  India  at  two  and  three  cents  per  pound,  and  command 
ing  here  at  this  moment,  notwithstanding  the  abundance  of  gold, 
but  eight  or  nine  cents,  with  a  certainty  that,  should  we  again  be 
favoured,  as  we  were  a  few  years  since,  with  a  succession  of  large 
crops,  it  will  fall  to  a  lower  point  than  it  ever  yet  has  seen  :  a  state 
of  things  that  could  not  exist  were  the  people  of  the  world  to  con 
sume  even  one-third  as  much  as  would  be  good  for  them.  Why  do 
they  not  ?  "Why  is  it  that  India,  with  her  hundred  millions  of  po 
pulation,  and  with  her  domestic  manufacture  in  a  state  of  ruin, 
consumes  of  British  cottons  to  the  extent  of  only  sixteen  cents  per 
head — or  little  more,  probably,  than  a  couple  of  yards  of  cloth  ? 
To  these  questions  an  answer  may  perhaps  be  found  upon  an  ex 
amination  of  the  circumstances  which  govern  the  consumption  of 
other  commodities;  for  we  may  be  quite  certain  that  cotton  obeys 
precisely  the  same  laws  as  sugar  and  coffee,  wine  and  wheat.  Such 
an  examination  would  result  in  showing  that  when  a  commodity 
is  at  once  produced  at  or  near  the  place  of  growth  in  the  form  fit 
ting  it  for  use,  the  consumption  is  invariably  large ;  and  that  when 
it  has  to  go  through  many  and  distant  hands  before  being  consumed 
it  is  as  invariably  small.  The  consumption  of  sugar  on  a  planta 
tion  is  large ;  but  if  it  were  needed  that  before  being  consumed  i' 
should  be  sent  to  Holland  to  be  refined,  and  then  brought  back 
again,  we  may  feel  well  assured  that  there  would  not  be  one  pound 
consumed  on  any  given  plantation  where  now  there  are  twenty,  or 


252  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

possibly  fifty.  The  consumption  of  cotton  on  the  plantation  is 
very  small  indeed,  because,  before  being  consumed,  it  has  to  be 
dragged  through  long  and  muddy  roads  to  the  landing,  thence  car 
ried  to  New  Orleans,  thence  to  Liverpool,  and  thence  to  Manches 
ter,  after  which  the  cloth  has  to  be  returned,  the  planter  receiving 
one  bale  for  every  five  he  sent  away,  and  giving  the  labour  of  cul 
tivating  an  acre  in  exchange  for  fifty,  sixty,  or  eighty  pounds  of 
its  product.  If,  now,  the  people  who  raised  the  cotton  were  free 
to  call  to  their  aid  the  various  natural  agents  of  whose  service  it  is 
the  object  of  the  British  system  to  deprive  them,  and  if,  therefore, 
the  work  of  converting  it  into  cloth  were  performed  on  the  ground 
where  it  was  raised,  or  in  its  neighbourhood,  is  it  not  clear  that  the 
consumption  would  be  largely  increased  ?  The  people  who  made 
the  cloth  would  be  the  consumers  of  numerous  things  raised  on  the 
plantation  that  are  now  wasted,  while  the  facility  of  converting 
such  things  into  cloth  would  be  a  bounty  on  raising  them;  and 
thus,  while  five  times  the  quantity  of  cotton  would  be  consumed, 
the  real  cost — that  is,  the  labour  cost — would  be  less  than  it  is  for 
the  smaller  quantity  now  used.  So,  too,  in  India.  It  may  be 
regarded  as  doubtful  if  the  quantity  of  cotton  to  day  consumed  in 
that  country  is  one-half  what  it  was  half  a  century  since — and  for 
the  reason  that  the  number  of  people  now  interposed  between  the 
consumer  and  the  producer  is  so  great.  The  consumption  of  wine 
in  France  is  enormous,  whereas  here  there  is  scarcely  any  con 
sumed  ;  and  yet  the  apparent  excess  of  price  is  not  so  great  as 
would  warrant  us  in  expecting  to  find  so  great  a  diiference. 
The  real  cause  is  n*ot  so  much  to  be  found  in  the  excess  of  price, 
though  that  is  considerable,  as  in  the  mode  of  payment.  A  peasant 
in  France  obtains  wine  in  exchange  for  much  that  would  be  wasted 
but  for  the  proximity  of  the  wine-vat,  and  the  demand  it  makes 
for  the  labour  of  himself  and  others.  He  raises  milk,  eggs,  and 
chickens,  and  he  has  fruit,  cabbages,  potatoes,  or  turnips,  commo 
dities  that  from  their  bulky  or  perishable  nature  cannot  be  sent  to 
a  distance,  but  can  be  exchanged  at  home.  The  farmer  of  Ohio 
cannot  exchange  his  spare  labour,  or  that  of  his  horses,  for  wine, 
nor  can  he  pay  for  it  in  peaches  or  strawberries,  of  which  the  yield 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  253 

of  an  acre  might  produce  him  hundreds  of  dollars — nor  in  potatoes 
or  turnips,  of  which  he  can  obtain  hundreds  of  bushels ;  but  he 
must  pay  in  wheat,  of  which  an  acre  yields  him  a  dozen  bushels, 
one-half  of  which  are  eaten  up  in  the  process  of  exchange  be 
tween  him  and  the  wine-grower.  Whenever  the  culture  of  the 
grape  shall  come  to  be  established  in  that  State,  and  wine  shall  be 
made  at  home,  it  will  be  found  that  the  gallons  consumed  will  be 
almost  as  numerous  as  are  now  the  drops.  Look  where  we  may, 
we  shall  find  the  same  result.  Wherever  the  consumer  and  the 
producer  are  brought  into  close  connection  with  each  other,  the 
increase  of  consumption  is  wonderful,  even  where  there  is  no  re 
duction  in  the  nominal  price  ]  and  wherever  they  are  separated, 
the  diminution  of  consumption  is  equally  wonderful,  even  where 
there  is  a  reduction  of  the  nominal  price — and  it  is  so  because  the 
facility  of  exchange  diminishes  as  the  distance  increases.  A  man 
who  has  even  a  single  hour's  labour  to  spare  may  exchange  it  with, 
his  neighbour  for  as  much  cotton  cloth  as  would  make  a  shirt;  but 
if  the  labour  market  is  distant,  he  may,  and  will,  waste  daily  as 
much  time  as  would  buy  him  a  whole  piece  of  cotton  cloth,  and 
may  have  to  go  shirtless  while  cotton  is  a  drug.  When  the  labour 
market  is  near,  land  acquires  value  and  men  become  rich  and  free. 
When  it  is  distant,  land  is  of  little  value  and  men  continue  poor 
and  enslaved. 

Before  proceeding  further,  it  would  be  well  for  the  reader  to 
look  around  his  own  neighbourhood,  and  see  how  many  exchanges 
are  even  now  made  that  could  not  be  made  by  people  that  were 
separated  even  ten  or  twenty  miles  from  each  other,  and  how  many 
conveniences  and  comforts  are  enjoyed  in  exchange  for  both  labour 
and  commodities  that  would  be  wasted  but  for  the  existence  of  direct 
intercourse  between  the  parties — and  then  to  satisfy  himself  if  the 
same  law  which  may  be  deduced  from  the  small  facts  of  a  village 
neighbourhood,  will  not  be  found  equally  applicable  to  the  great 
ones  of  larger  communities. 

Having  reflected  upon  these  things,  let  him  next  look  at  the 
present  condition  of  the  cotton  trade,  and  remark  the  fact  that 

22 


254  TEE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

scarcely  any  of  the  wool  produced  is  consumed  without  first  tra 
velling  thousands  of  miles,  and  passing  through  almost  hundreds 
of  hands.  The  places  of  production  are  India,  Egypt,  Brazil,  the 
West  Indies,  and  our  Southern  States.  In  the  first,  the  manufac 
ture  is  in  a  state  of  ruin.  In  the  second,  third,  and  fourth,  it  has 
never  been  permitted  to  have  an  existence ;  and  in  the  last  it  has 
but  recently  made  an  effort  to  struggle  into  life,  but  from  month 
to  month  we  hear  of  the  stoppage  or  destruction  of  Southern  mills, 
and  the  day  is  apparently  now  not  far  distant  when  we  shall  have 
again  to  say  that  no  portion  of  the  cotton  crop  can  be  consumed 
in  the  cotton-growing  region  until  after  it  shall  have  travelled 
thousands  of  miles  in  quest  of  hands  to  convert  it  into  cloth. 

Why  is  this  ?  Why  is  it  that  the  light  and  easily  transported 
spindle  and  loom  are  not  placed  in  and  about  the  cotton  fields  ? 
The  planters  have  labour,  that  is  now  wasted,  that  would  be  abun 
dant  for  the  conversion  of  half  their  crops,  if  they  could  but  bring 
the  machinery  to  the  land,  instead  of  taking  the  produce  of  the 
land  to  the  machinery.  Once  brought  there,  it  would  be  there 
for  ever ;  whereas,  let  them  carry  the  cotton  to  the  spindle  as  long 
as  they  may,  the  work  must  still  be  repeated.  Again,  why  is  it 
that  the  people  of  India,  to  whom  the  world  was  so  long  indebted 
for  all  its  cotton  goods,  have  not  only  ceased  to  supply  distant 
countries,  but  have  actually  ceased  to  spin  yarn  or  make  cloth  for 
themselves  ?  Why  should  they  carry  raw  cotton  on  the  backs  of 
bullocks  for  hundreds  of  miles,  and  then  send  it  by  sea  for  thou 
sands  of  miles,  paying  freights,  commissions,  and  charges  of  all 
kinds  to  an  amount  so  greatly  exceeding  the  original  price,  to  part 
with  sixty  millions  of  pounds  of  raw  material,  to  receive  in  exchange 
eight  or  ten  millions  of  pounds  of  cloth  and  yarn  ?  Is  it  not  clear 
that  the  labour  of  converting  the  cotton  into  yarn  is  not  one-quar 
ter  as  great  as  was  the  labour  of  raising  the  cotton  itself  ?  Never 
theless,  we  here  see  them  giving  six  or  eight  pounds  of  cotton  for 
probably  a  single  one  of  yarn,  while  labour  unemployed  abounds 
throughout  India.  Further,  Brazil  raises  cotton,  and  she  has 
spare  labour,  and  yet  she  sends  her  cotton  to  look  for  the  spindle, 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  255 

instead  of  bringing  the  spindle  to  look  for  the  cotton,  as  she  might 
so  readily  do.  Why  does  she  so  ?  The  answer  to  these  questions 
is  to  be  found  in  British  legislation,  founded  on  the  idea  that  the 
mode  of  securing  to  the  people  of  England  the  highest  prosperity 
is  to  deprive  all  mankind,  outside  of  her  own  limits,  of  the  power  to 
mine  coal,  make  iron,  construct  machinery,  or  use  steam,  in  aid  of 
their  efforts  to  obtain  food,  clothing,  or  any  other  of  the  necessaries 
of  life.  This  system  is  directly  opposed  to  that  advocated  by  Adam 
Smith.  Not  only,  said  he,  is  it  injurious  to  other  nations,  but  it 
must  be  injurious  to  yourselves,  for  it  will  diminish  the  productive 
ness  of  both  labour  and  capital,  and  will,  at  the  same  time,  render 
you  daily  more  and  more  dependent  upon  the  operations  of  other 
countries,  when  you  should  be  becoming  more  independent  of  them. 
His  warnings  were  then,  as  they  are  now,  unheeded ;  and  from  his 
day  to  the  present,  England  has  been  engaged  in  an  incessant  effort 
utterly  to  destroy  the  manufactures  of  India,  and  to  crush  every 
attempt  elsewhere  to  establish  any  competition  with  her  for  the  pur- 
chase  of  cotton.  The  reader  will  determine  for  himself  if  this  is 
not  a  true  picture  of  the  operations  of  the  last  seventy  years.  If 
it  is,  let  him  next  determine  if  the  tendency  of  the  system  is  not 
that  of  enslaving  the  producers  of  cotton,  white,  brown,  and  black, 
and  compelling  them  to  carry  all  their  wool  to  a  single  market,  in 
which  one  set  of  masters  dictates  the  price  at  which  they  must  sell 
the  raw  material  and  must  buy  the  manufactured  one.  Could  there 
be  a  greater  tyranny  than  this  ? 

To  fully  understand  the  working  of  the  system  in  diminishing 
the  power  to  consume,  let  us  apply  elsewhere  the  same  principle, 
placing  in  Rochester,  on  the  Falls  of  the  Genesee,  a  set  of  corn- 
millers  who  had  contrived  so  effectually  to  crush  all  attempts  to 
establish  mills  in  other  parts  of  the  Middle  States,  that  no  man 
could  eat  bread  that  had  not  travelled  up  to  that  place  in  its  most 
bulky  form,  coming  back  in  its  most  compact  one,  leaving  at  the 
mill  all  the  refuse  that  might  have  been  applied  to  the  fattening 
of  hogs  and  cattle — and  let  us  suppose  that  the  diagram  on  the 
following  page  represented  the  corn  trade  of  that  portion  of  the 
Union. 


256 


THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 


Now,  suppose  all  the  grain  of  half  a  dozen  States  had  to  make 
its  way  through  such  a  narrow  passage  as  is  above  indicated,  is  it 
not  clear  that  the  owners  of  roads,  wagons,  and  mills  would  be 
masters  of  the  owners  of  land  ?  Is  it  not  clear  that  the  larger  the 
crops  the  higher  would  be  freights,  and  the  larger  the  charge  for 
the  use  of  mills,  the  smaller  would  be  the  price  of  a  bushel  of 
wheat  as  compared  with  that  of  a  bag  of  meal  ?  Would  not  the 
farmers  find  themselves  to  be  mere  slaves  to  the  owners  of  a  small 
quantity  of  mill  machinery  ?  That  such  would  be  the  case,  no 
one  can  even  for  a  moment  doubt— nor  is  it  at  all  susceptible  of 
doubt  that  the  establishment  of  such  a  system  would  diminish  by 
one-half  the  consumption  of  food  throughout  those  States,  and  also 
the  power  to  produce  it,  for  all  the  refuse  would  be  fed  at  and  near 
Rochester,  and  the  manure  yielded  by  it  would  be  totally  lost  to  the 
farmer  who  raised  the  food.  The  value  of  both  labour  and  land 
would  thus  be  greatly  diminished.  Admitting,  for  a  moment,  that 
such  a  system  existed,  what  would  be  the  remedy  ?  Would  it  not  be 
found  in  an  effort  to  break  down  the  monopoly,  and  thus  to  establish 
among  the  people  the  power  to  trade  among  themselves  without  pay 
ing  toll  to  the  millers  of  Rochester  ?  Assuredly  it  would ;  and  to 
that  end  they  would  be  seen  uniting  among  themselves  to  induce  mil 
lers  to  come  and  settle  among  them,  precisely  as  we  see  men  every 
where  uniting  to  bring  schools  and  colleges  to  their  neighbourhood, 
well  assured  that  a  small  present  outlay  is  soon  made  up,  even  in 
a  pecuniary  point  of  view,  in  being  enabled  to  keep  their  children 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  257 

at  home  while  being  educated,  instead  of  sending  them  abroad, 
there  to  be  boarded  and  lodged,  while  food  is  wasted  at  home  that 
they  might  eat,  and  chambers  are  empty  that  they  might  occupy. 
Education  thus  obtained  costs  a  parent  almost  literally  nothing, 
while  that  for  which  a  child  must  go  to  a  distance  is  so  costly 
that  few  can  obtain  it.  Precisely  so  is  it  with  food  and  with 
cloth.  The  mere  labour  of  converting  grain  into  flour  is  as 
nothing  when  compared  with  that  required  for  its  transportation 
hundreds  of  miles ;  and  the  mere  labour  required  for  the  conver 
sion  of  cotton  into  cloth  is  as  nothing  compared  with  the  charges 
attendant  upon  its  "transportation  from  the  plantation  to  Manchester 
and  back  again.  Commercial  centralization  looks,  however,  to 
compelling  the  planter  to  pay  treble  the  cost  of  conversion,  in  the 
wages  and  profits  of  the  people  employed  in  transporting  and  ex 
changing  the  cotton. 

Admitting  that  the  grain  and  flour  trade  were  thus  centralized, 
what  would  be  the  effect  of  a  succession  of  large  crops,  or  even 
of  a  single  one  ?  Would  not  the  roads  be  covered  with  wagons 
whenever  they  were  passable,  and  even  at  times  when  they  were 
almost  impassable  ?  Would  not  every  one  be  anxious  to  anticipate 
the  apprehended  fall  of  prices  by  being  early  in  the  market  ? 
Would  not  freights  be  high  ?  Would  not  the  farmer,  on  his  arrival 
in  Rochester,  find  that  every  store-house  was  filled  to  overflow 
ing  ?  Would  not  storage  be  high  ?  Would  he  not  approach  the 
miller  cap  in  hand,  and  would  not  the  latter  receive  him  with  his 
hat  on  his  head  ?  Assuredly  such  would  be  the  case,  and  he 
would  hear  everywhere  of  the  astonishing  extent  of  "  the  surplus" 
— of  how  rapidly  production  was  exceeding  consumption — of  the 
length  of  time  his  grain  must  remain  on  hand  before  it  could  be 
ground — of  the  low  price  of  flour,  &c.  &c. ; — and  the  result  would 
be  that  the  more  grain  carried  to  market  the  less  would  be  carried 
back,  and  the  less  he  would  be  able  to  consume ;  and  at  last  he 
would  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  the  only  effect  of  large  crops 
granted  him  by  the  bounty  of  Heaven  was  that  of  enriching  the 
miller  at  his  expense,  by  compelling  him  to  allow  more  toll  for  the 
privilege  of  creeping  through  the  hole  provided  for  him  by  the 


258  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

miller.  He  would  pray  for  Droughts  and  freshets — for  storms  and 
frosts — as  the  only  means  of  escape  from  ruin. 

The  reader  may  determine  for  himself  if  this  is  not  a  fair  pic 
ture  of  the  cotton  trade  ?  Do  the  planters  profit  by  good  crops  ? 
Assuredly  not.  The  more  they  send  to  market  the  less  they  re 
ceive  for  it.  Do  they  profit  by  improvements  in  the  transportation 
of  their  commodity?  Certainly  not.  With  the  growth  of  rail 
roads,  cotton  has  fallen  in  price,  and  will  not  this  day  command 
on  the  plantation  near  as  much,  per  pound,  as  it  did  before  the  rail 
road  was  invented.  In  India,  the  cost  of  transportation  from  the 
place  of  production  to  England  has  fallen  in  the  last  forty  years 
sevenpenee,*  and  yet  the  grower  of  cotton  obtains  for  it  one-third 
less  than  he  did  before — receiving  now  little  more  than  two  cents, 
when  before  he  had  from  three  to  four.  Who  profits  by  the  re 
duction  of  cost  of  transportation  and  conversion  ?  The  man  who 
keeps  the  toll-gate  through  which  it  passes  to  the  world,  and  who 
opens  it  only  gradually,  so  as  to  permit  the  increased  quantity  to 
pass  through  slowly,  paying  largely  for  the  privilege.  Ttiat  all 
this  is  perfectly  in  accordance  with  the  facts  of  the  case  must  be 
obvious  to  every  reader.  The  planter  becomes  rich  when  crops 
are  short,  but  then  the  mill-owner  makes  but  little  profit.  He  is 
almost  ruined  when  crops  are  large,  but  then  it  is  that  the  mill- 
owner  is  enriched — and  thus  it  is  that  the  system  produces  universal 
discord,  whereas  under  a  natural  system  there  would  be  as  perfect 
harmony  of  national,  as  there  is  of  individual  interests. 

We  may  now  inquire  how  this  would  affect  the  farmers  around 
Rochester.  The  consumption  of  the  Middle  States  would  be 
largely  diminished  because  of  the  heavy  expense  of  transporting  the 
wheat  to  mill  and  the  flour  back  again,  and  this  would  cause  a 
great  increase  of  the  surplus  for  which  a  market  must  be  else 
where  found.  This,  of  course,  would  reduce  prices,  and  prevent 
increase,  if  it  did  not  produce  large  diminution  in  the  value  of 
land.  The  millers  would  become  millionaires — great  men  among 
their  poorer  neighbours — and  they  would  purchase  large  farms  to 

*  Chapman,  Commerce  of  India. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  259 

/ 

be  managed  by  great  farmers,  and  fine  houses  surrounded  by  large 
pleasure-grounds.  Land  would  become  everywhere  more  and 
more  consolidated,  because  people  who  could  do  so  would  fly  from  a 
country  in  which  such  a  tyranny  existed.  The  demand  for  labour 
would  diminish  as  the  smaller  properties  became  absorbed.  Ro 
chester  itself  would  grow,  because  it  would  be  filled  with  cheap 
labour  from  the  country,  seeking  employment,  and  because  there 
would  be  great  numbers  of  wagoners  and  their  horses  to  be  cared 
for,  while  porters  innumerable  would  be  engaged  in  carrying 
wheat  in  one  direction  and  flour  in  another.  Hotels  would  grow 
large,  thieves  and  prostitutes  would  abound,  and  morals  would 
decline.  From  year  to  year  the  millers  would  become  greater 
men,  and  the  farmers  and  labourers  smaller  men,  and  step  by  step 
all  would  find  themselves  becoming  slaves  to  the  caprices  of  the 
owners  of  a  little  machinery,  the  whole  cost  of  which  would 
scarcely  exceed  the  daily  loss  resulting  from  the  existence  of  tho 
system.  By  degrees,  the  vices  of  the  slave  would  become  more 
and  more  apparent.  Intemperance  would  grow,  and  education  would 
diminish,  as  the  people  of  the  surrounding  country  became  more  de 
pendent  on  the  millers  for  food  and  clothing  in  exchange  for  cheap 
grain  and  cheaper  labour/  The  smaller  towns  would  everywhere  de 
cline,  and  from  day  to  day  the  millers  would  find  it  more  easy  so  to 
direct  the  affairs  of  the  community  as  to  secure  a  continuance  of 
their  monopoly.  Local  newspapers  would  pass  away,  and  in  their 
stead  the  people  throughout  the  country  would  be  supplied  with 
the  Rochester  TimeSj  which  would  assure  the  farmers  that  cheap 
food  tended  to  produce  cheaper  labour,  and  the  land-owners  that 
if  they  did  not  obtain  high  rents  it  was  their  own  fault,  the  defect 
being  in  their  own  bad  cultivation — and  the  more  rapid  the  aug 
mentation  of  the  millers'  fortunes,  and  of  the  extent  of  their  plea 
sure-grounds,  the  greater,  they  would  be  assured,  must  be  the 
prosperity  of  the  whole  people,  even  although  the  same  paper 
might  find  itself  obliged  to  inform  its  readers  that  the  overgrown 
capital  presented  it  as 

"A  strange  result  of  the  terrible  statistics  of  society,  that  there  was 
upon  an  average  one  person  out  of  twenty  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 


260  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

luxurious  metropolis  every  day  destitute  of  food  and  employment,  and 
every  night  without  a  place  for  shelter  or  repose  ?" — London  Times. 

We  have  here  slavery  at  home  as  a  consequence  of  the  determi 
nation  to  subject  to  slavery  people  abroad.  With  each  step  in  the 
growth  of  the  millers'  fortunes,  and  of  the  splendour  of  their  resi 
dences,  land  would  have  become  consolidated  and  production  would 
have  diminished,  and  the  whole  population  would  have  tended  more 
and  more  to  become  a  mass  of  mere  traders,  producing  nothing 
themselves,  but  buying  cheaply  and  selling  dearly,  and  thus  deriv 
ing  their  support  from  the  exercise  of  the  power  to  tax  the  unfortu 
nate  people  forced  to  trade  with  them  ;  a  state  of  things  in  the 
highest  degree  adverse  to  moral,  intellectual,  or  political  improve 
ment. 

The  reader  may  now  turn  to  the  extracts  from  Mr.  McCulloch/s 
works  already  given,  (page  240  ante,)  and  compare  with  them  this 
view  of  the  effects  of  supposed  commercial  centralization  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic.  Doing  so,  he  will  find  it  there  stated  that  it 
is  to  the  consolidation  of  the  land,  and  to  the  luxury  of  the  style  of 
living  of  the  great  landlords,  surrounded,  as  they  "  in  most  cases" 
are,  by  "  poor  and  needy  dependants,"  whose  necessities  finally  com 
pel  them  to  seek  in  large  cities  a  market  for  their  own  labour, 
and  that  of  their  wives  and  children,  that  we  are  to  look  for  an 
augmentation  of  "  the  mass  of  wealth  and  the  scale  of  enjoyment  1" 
Modern  British  political  economy  holds  no  single  idea  that  is  in 
harmony  with  the  real  doctrines  of  Adam  Smith,  and  yet  it 
claims  him  as  its  head  ! 


THE  reader  is  requested  now  to  remark — 

I.  That  the  system  of  commercial  centralization  sought  to  be  es 
tablished  by  Great  Britain  is  precisely  similar  to  the  one  here  as 
cribed  to  the  millers  of  Rochester,  with  the  difference  only,  that  it 
has  for  its  object  to  compel  all  descriptions  of  raw  produce  to  pass 
through  England  on  its  way  from  the  consumer  and  the  producer, 
even  when  the  latter  are  near  neighbours  to  each  other,  and  England 
distant  many  thousand  of  miles  from  both. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  261 

II.  That  to  carry  out  that  system  it  was  required  that  all  other 
nations  should  be  prevented  from  obtaining  either  the  knowledge  or 
the  machinery  required  for  enabling  them  cheaply  to  mine  coal, 
smelt  iron  ore,  or  manufacture  machines  by  aid  of  which  they 
could  command  the  services  of  the  great   natural  agents  whose 
talue  to  man  is  so  well  described  by  Mr.  McCulloch.     (See  page 
249  ante.) 

III.  That  this  was  at  first  accomplished  by  means  of  prohibitions, 
and  that  it  is  now  maintained  by  the  most  strenuous  efforts  for 
cheapening  labour,  and  thus  depriving  the  labourer  at  home  of  the 
power  to  determine  for  whom  he  will  work  or  what  shall  be  his 
wages. 

IV.  That  the  more  perfectly  this  system  can  be  carried  out,  the 
more  entirely  must  all  other  nations  limit  themselves,  men,  women 
and  children,  to  the  labour  of  the  field,  and  the  lower  must  be  the 
standard  of  intellect. 

Y.  That  while  the  number  of  agriculturists  in  other  countries 
must  thus  be  increased,  the  power  to  consume  their  own  products 
must  be  diminished,  because  of  the  great  increase  of  the  charges 
between  the  producer  and  the  consumer. 

VI.  That  this,  in  turn,  must  be  attended  with  an  increase  in  the 
quantity  of  food  and  other  raw  materials  thrown  on  the  market  of 
Britain,  with  great  increase  in  the  competition  between  the  foreign 
and  domestic  producers  for  the  possession  of  that  market,  and  great 
diminution  of  prices. 

VII.  That  this  tends  necessarily  to  "  discourage  agriculture"  in 
Britain,  and  to  prevent  the  application  of  labour  to  the  improve 
ment  of  the  land. 

VIII.  That  it  likewise  tends  to  the  deterioration  of  the  condition 
of  the  foreign  agriculturist,  who  is  thus  deprived  of  the  power  to 
improve  his  land,  or  to  increase  the  quantity  of  his  products. 

IX.  That  the  smaller  the  quantity  of  commodities  produced,  the 
less  must  be  the  power  to  pay  for  labour,  and  the  less  the  compe 
tition  for  the  purchase  of  the  labourer's  services. 

X.  That  with  the  decline  in  the  demand  for  labour,  the  less 
must  be  the  power  of  consumption  on  the  part  of  the  labourer, 


262  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

the  greater  must  be  the  tendency  to  a  glut  of  foreign  and 
domestic  produce  in  the  general  market  of  the  world,  and  the 
greater  the  tendency  to  a  further  diminution  of  the  labourer's 
reward. 

XI.  That  the  greater  the  quantity  of  raw  produce  seeking  to 
pass  through  the  market  of  England,  the  greater  must  be  the  tend 
ency  to  a  decline  in  the  value  of  English  land,  and  the  larger  the 
charges  of  the  owners  of  the  mills,   ships,  and   shops,  through 
which  the  produce  must  pass,  and  the  greater  their  power  of  accu 
mulation,  at  the  cost  of  both  labour  and  land. 

XII.  That  the  less  the  labour  applied  to  the  improvement  of 
the  soil,  the  more  must  the  population  of  the  country  be  driven 
from  off  the  land,  the  greater  must  be  the  tendency  of  the  latter 
toward  consolidation,  and  the  greater  the  tendency  toward  absentee 
ism  and  the  substitution  of  great  farmers  and  day-labourers  for 
small  proprietors,  with  further  decline  in  production  and  in  the  de 
mand  for  labour. 

XIII.  That  with  the  reduction  of  the  country  population,  local 
places  of  exchange  must  pass  away ;  and  that  labour  and  land  must 
decline  in  power  as  ships,  mills,  and  their  owners  become   more 
united  and  more  powerful. 

XIV.  That  the  tendency  of  the  whole  system  is,  therefore,  to 
ward  diminishing  the  value  and  the  power  of  land,  and  toward 
rendering  the  labourer  a  mere  slave  to  the  trading  community, 
which  obtains  from  day  to  day  more  and  more  the  power  to  impose 
taxes  at  its  pleasure,  and  to  centralize  in  its  own  hands  the  direc 
tion  of  the  affairs  of  the  nation ;  to  the  destruction  of  local  self- 
government,  and  to  the  deterioration  of  the  physical,  moral,  intel 
lectual,  and  political  condition  of  the  people. 

In  accordance  with  these  views,  an  examination  of  the  productive 
power  of  the  United  Kingdom  should  result  in  showing  that  pro 
duction  has  not  kept  pace  with  population;  and  that  such  had  been 
she  case  we  should  be  disposed  to  infer  from  the  increasing  demand 
for  cheap  labour,  and  from  the  decline  that  has  unquestionably 
taken  place  in  the  control  of  the  labourer  over  his  own  operations. 
That  the  facts  are  in  accordance  with  this  inference  the  reader  may 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  263 

perhaps  be  disposed  to  admit  after  having  examined  carefully  the 
following  figures. 

In  1815,  now  thirty-eight  years  since,  the  declared  value  of  the 
exports  of  the  United  Kingdom,  of  British  produce  and  manufac 
ture,  was  as  follows  : — 

Of  woollen  manufactures £9,381,426 

"    cotton  " 20,620,000 

"    silk  «  622,118 

"    linen  "  1,777,563 

And  of  other  commodities 19,231,684 


Total 51,632,791 

In  the  same  year  there  were  imported  of 


Wool 13,634,000  Ibs. 

Cotton 99,306,000  " 

Silk 1,807,000  « 

Flax 41,000,000  « 


Grain 267,000  quarters. 

Flour 202,000  cwts. 

Butter 125,000     " 

Cheese 106,000      " 


If  to  the  raw  cotton,  wool,  silk,  and  flax  that  were  re-exported 
in  a  manufactured  state,  and  to  the  dyeing  materials  and  other 
articles  required  for  their  manufacture,  we  now  add  the  whole 
foreign  food,  as  above  shown,  we  can  scarcely  make,  of  foreign  com 
modities  re-exported,  an  amount  exceeding  twelve,  or  at  most  thir 
teen  millions,  leaving  thirty-eight  millions  as  the  value  of  the 
British  produce  exported  in  that  year  ;  and  this  divided  among  the 
people  of  the  United  Kingdom  would  give  nearly  £2  per  head. 
In  1851  the  exports  were  as  follows  : — 

Manufactures  of  wool £10,314,000 

"  cotton 30,078,000 

«  silk 1,329,000 

«  flax 5,048,000 

All  other  commodities 21,723,569 


Total £68,492,569 

We  see  thus  that  nearly  the  whole  increase  that  had  taken  place 
in  the  long  period  of  thirty-six  years  was  to  be  found  in  four 
branches  of  manufacture,  the  materials  of  which  were  wholly  drawn 
from  abroad,  as  ia  shown  in  the  following  statement  of  imports  for 
that  year : — 


264  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 


Wool 83,000,000  Ibs. 

Cotton 700,000,000  « 

Silk 5,020,000  " 

Flax 135,000,000  " 

Eggs 115,000,000 

Oxen,  cows,  calves, 
sheep,  hogs,  &c.... 300,000 


Corn 8,147,675  qw. 

Flour 5,384,552  cwts. 

Potatoes 635,000     " 

Provisions 450,000     " 

Butter 354,000     " 

Cheese 338,000     " 

Hams  and  lard.      130,000     " 


The  wool  imported  was  more  than  was  required  to  produce  the 
cloth  exported,  and  from  this  it  follows  that  the  whole  export  re 
presented  foreign  wool.  The  cotton,  silk,  flax,  dyeing-materials, 
&c.  exported  were  all  foreign,  and  the  food  imported  was  adequate, 
or  nearly  so,  to  feed  the  people  who  produced  the  goods  exported. 
Such  being  the  case,  it  would  follow  that  the  total  exports  of  British 
and  Irish  produce  could  scarcely  have  amounted  to  even  £15,000,000, 
and  it  certainly  could  not  have  exceeded  that  sum — and  that  would 
give  about  10s.  per  head,  or  one-fourth  as  much  as  in  1815. 

The  difference  between  the  two  periods  is  precisely  the  same  as 
that  between  the  farmer  and  the  shoemaker.  The  man  who,  by  the 
labour  of  himself  and  sons,  is  enabled  to  send  to  market  the  equi 
valent  of  a  thousand  bushels  of  wheat,  has  first  fed  Jiimsdf  and 
them,  and  therefore  he  has  the  whole  proceeds  of  his  sales  to  apply 
to  the  purchase  of  clothing,  furniture,  or  books,  or  to  add  to  his 
capital.  His  neighbour  buys  food  and  leather,  and  sells  shoes.  He 
has  been  fed,  and  the  first  appropriation  to  be  made  of  the  proceeds 
of  his  sales  is  to  buy  more  food  and  leather;  and  all  he  has  to  ap 
ply  to  other  purposes  is  the  difference  between  the  price  at  which  he 
buys  and  that  at  which  he  sells.  Admitting  that  difference  to  be 
one-sixth,  it  would  follow  that  his  sales  must  be  six  times  as  large 
to  enable  him  to  have  the  same  value  to  be  applied  to  the  purchase 
of  other  commodities  than  food,  or  to  the  increase  of  his  capital. 
Another  neighbour  buys  and  sells  wheat,  or  shoes,  at  a  commission 
of  five  per  cent.,  out  of  which  he  has  to  be  fed.  To  enable  him  to 
have  an  amount  of  gross  commissions  equal  to  the  farmer's  sales, 
he  must  do  twenty  times  as  much  business;  and  if  we  allow  one- 
half  of  it  for  the  purchase  of  food,  he  must  do  forty  times  as  much 
to  enable  him  to  have  the  same  amount  with  which  to  purchase 
other  commodities,  or  to  increase  his  capital.  Precisely  so  is  it 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  265 

with  a  nation.  When  it  sells  its  own  food  and  leather,  it  has  fed 
itsdf,  and  may  dispose  as  it  will  of  the  whole  amount  of  sales. 
When  it  buys  food  and  leather,  and  sells  shoes,  it  lias  been  fed,  and 
must  first  pay  the  producers  of  those  commodities;  and  all  that  it  can 
appropriate  to  the  purchase  of  clothing  or  furniture,  or  to  the  in 
crease  of  its  capital,  is  the  difference  ;  and,  to  enable  it  to  have  the 
same  amount  to  be  so  applied,  it  must  sell  six  times  as  much  in  value. 
When  it  acts  as  a  mere  buyer  and  seller  of  sugar,  cotton,  cloth,  or 
shoes,  it  has  to  be  fed  out  of  the  differences,  and  then  it  may  re 
quire  forty  times  the  amount  of  sales  to  yield  the  same  result. 

These  things  being  understood,  we  may  now  compare  the  two 
years  above  referred  to.  In  the  first,  1815,  the  sales  of  domestic 

produce  amounted  to £38,600,000 

And  if  to  this  we  add  the  difference  on  £13,000,000.  2,166,667 
We  obtain  the  amount  applicable  to  the  purchase  of 

other  commodities  than  food £40,766,667 

In  the  second,  1851,  the  sales  of  domestic  produce 

were £15,000,000 

To  which  add  differences  on  £53,492,000,  say 9,000,000 

We  have,  as  applicable  to  other  purposes  than  the 

purchase  of  food £24,000,000 

Divided  among  the  population  of  those  years,  it  gives  £2  per  head 
in  the  first,  and  16s.  in  the  other;  but  even  this,  great  as  it  is, 
does  not  represent  in  its  full  extent  the  decline  that  has  taken 
place.  The  smaller  the  change  of  form  made  in  the  commodity 
imported  before  exporting  it,  the  more  nearly  does  the  business 
resemble  that  of  the  mere  trader,  and  the  larger  must  be  the  quan 
tity  of  merchandise  passing,  to  leave  behind  the  same  result.  In 
1815,  the  export  of  yarn  of  any  kind  was  trivial,  because  other 
countries  were  then  unprovided  with  looms.  In  1851  the  export 
of  mere  yarn,  upon  which  the  expenditure  of  British  labour  had 
been  only  that  of  twisting  it,  was  as  follows  : — 

Cotton 144,000,000  Ibs.  I  Silk 390,000  Ibs. 

Linen 19,000,000    "    |  Woollen....  14,800,000    " 

The  reader  will  readily  perceive  that  in  all  these  cases  the  foreign 
raw  material  bears  a  much  larger  proportion  to  the  value  than  would 

23 


266  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

have  been  the  case  i  :$  the  exports  taken  place  in  the  form  of  cloth 
An  examination  of  aese  facts  can  scarcely  fail  to  satisfy  him  how 
deceptive  are  any  calculations  based  upon  statements  of  the  amount 
of  exports  and  imports ;  and  yet  it  is  to  them  we  are  always  re 
ferred  for  evidence  of  the  growing  prosperity  of  England.  With 
every  year  there  must  be  an  increasing  tendency  in  the  same  direc 
tion,  as  the  manufacturers  of  India  are  more  and  more  compelled  to 
depend  on  England  for  yarn,  and  as  the  nations  of  Europe  become 
more  and  more  enabled  to  shut  out  cloth  and  limit  their  imports  to 
yarn.  From  producer,  England  has  become,  or  is  rapidly  becoming, 
a  mere  trader,  and  trade  has  not  grown  to  such  an  extent  as  was  re 
quired  to  make  amends  for  the  change.  She  is  therefore  in  the  posi 
tion  of  the  man  who  has  substituted  a  trade  of  a  thousand  dollars 
a  year  for  a  production  of  five  hundred.  In  1815,  the  people 
of  the  United  Kingdom  had  to  divide  among  themselves,  then 
twenty  millions  in  number,  almost  forty  millions,  the  value  of 
their  surplus  products  exported  to  all  parts  of  the  earth.  In  1851, 
being  nearly  thirty  millions  in  number,  they  had  to  divide  only 
fifteen  millions,  whereas  had  production  been  maintained,  it  should 
have  reached  sixty  millions,  or  almost  the  total  amount  of  exports. 
In  place  of  this  vast  amount  of  products  for  sale,  they  had  only  the 
differences  upon  an  excess  trade  of  £40,000,000,  and  this  can 
scarcely  be  estimated  at  more  than  eight  or  ten,  toward  making  up 
a  deficit  of  forty-five  millions.  Such  being  the  facts,  it  will  not 
now  be  difficult  for  the  reader  to  understand  why  it  is  that  there 
is  a  decline  in  the  material  and  moral  condition  of  the  people. 

How  this  state  of  things  has  been  brought  about  is  shown  by 
the  steady  diminution  in  the  proportion  of  the  population  engaged 
in  the  work  of  production.  Adam  Smith  cautioned  his  countrymen 
that  "if  the  whole  surplus  produce  of  America  in  grain  of  all 
sorts,  salt  provisions,  and  fish,"  were  "  forced  into  the  market  of 
Great  Britain,"  it  would  "  interfere  too  much  with  the  prosperity 
of  our  own  people."  He  thought  it  would  be  a  "great  discourage 
ment  to  agriculture."  And  yet,  from  that  hour  to  the  present,  no 
eftbrt  has  been  spared  to  increase  in  all  the  nations  of  the  world 
the  surplus  of  raw  produce,  to  be  poured  into  the  British  market, 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  207 

and  thus  to  produce  competition  between  the  producers  abroad  and 
the  producers  at  home,  to  the  manifest  injury  of  both.  The  more 
the  linen  manufacture,  or  those  of  wool,  hemp,  or  iron,  could  be 
discouraged  abroad,  the  greater  was  the  quantity  of  raw  products 
to  be  sent  to  London  and  Liverpool,  and  the  less  the  inducement  for 
applying  labour  to  the  improvement  of  English  land.  For  a  time, 
this  operation,  so  far  as  regarded  food,  was  restrained  by  the  corn- 
laws  ;  but  now  the  whole  system  is  precisely  that  which  was  repro 
bated  by  the  most  profound  political  economist  that  Britain  has 
ever  produced.  Its  consequences  are  seen  in  the  following  figures: 
— In  1811,  the  proportion  of  the  population  of  England  engaged 
in  agriculture  was  35  per  cent.  In  1841  it  had  fallen  to  25  per 
cent.,  and  now  it  can  scarcely  exceed  22  per  cent.,  and  even  in  1841 
the  actual  number  was  less  than  it  had  been  thirty  years  before.* 

Thus  driven  out  from  the  land,  Englishmen  had  to  seek  other 
employment,  while  the  same  system  was  annually  driving  to  Eng 
land  tens  of  thousands  of  the  poor  people  of  Scotland  and  Ireland ; 
and  thus  forced  competition  for  the  sale  in  England  of  •  the  raw 
products  of  the  earth  produced  competition  there  for  the  sale  of 
labour;  the  result  of  which  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  agricultural 
wages  have  been  from  6s.  to  9s.  a  week,  and  the  labourer  has  be 
come  from  year  to  year  more  a  slave  to  the  caprices  of  his  employer, 
whether  the  great  farmer  or  the  wealthy  owner  of  mills  or  furnaces. 


*  During  all  this  time  there  was  a  large  increase  in  the  import  of  food  from 
Ireland;  and  this,  of  course,  constituted  a  portion  of  domestic  produce  exported 
in  the  shape  of  manufactures,  the  whole  proceeds  of  which  were  to  be  retained  at 
home.  Since  1846,  the  change  in  that  country  has  been  so  great  that  she  is  now 
a  large  importer  of  foreign  grain.  The  official  return  for  1849  shows  a  diminu 
tion  in  the  quantity  raised,  as  compared  with  1844,  of  no  less  than  9,304,607 
quarters ;  and  instead  of  sending  to  England,  as  she  had  been  accustomed  to  do, 
more  than  three  millions  of  quarters,  she  was  an  importer  in  that  year  and  the 
following  one  of  more  than  a  million.  This  deficiency  had  to  be  made  up  from 
abroad,  and  thus  was  the  United  Kingdom  transformed  from  the  position  of  seller 
of  four  or  five  millions  of  quarters — say  about  40  millions  of  our  bushels — of  which 
it  retained  the  whole  proceeds,  to  that  of  the  mere  shopkeeper,  who  retains  only 
the  profit  on  the  same  quantity.  A  similar  state  of  things  might  be  shown  in 
regard  to  many  of  the  other  articles  of  produce  above  enumerated. 


268  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

The  total  population  of  the  United  Kingdom  dependent  upon  agri 
culture  cannot  be  taken  at  more  than  ten  millions  j  and  as  agricul 
tural  wages  cannot  be  estimated  at  a  higher  average  than  5s.  per  week, 
there  cannot  be,  including  the  earnings  of  women,  more  than  6s. 
per  family ;  and  if  that  be  divided  among  four,  it  gives  Is.  6^.  per 
head,  or  <£3  18s.  per  annum,  and  a  total  amount,  to  be  divided 
among  ten  millions  of  people,  of  40  millions  of  pounds,  or  192 
millions  of  dollars.  In  reflecting  upon  this,  the  reader  is  requested 
to  bear  in  mind  that  it  provides  wages  for  every  week  in  the  year, 
whereas  throughout  a  considerable  portion  of  the  United  Kingdom 
very  much  of  the  time  is  unoccupied. 

Cheap  labour  has,  in  every  country,  gone  hand  in  hand  with 
cheap  land.  Such  having  been  the  case,  it  may  not  now  be  diffi 
cult  to  account  for  the  small  value  of  land  when  compared  with 
the  vast  advantages  it  possesses  in  being  everywhere  close  to  a 
market  in  which  to  exchange  its  raw  products  for  manufactured 
ones,  and  also  for  manure.  The  reader  has  seen  the  estimate  of 
M.  Thunen,  one  of  the  best  agriculturists  of  Germany,  of  the 
vast  difference  in  the  value  of  land  in  Mecklenburgh  close  to 
market,  as  compared  with  that  distant  from  it;  but  he  can  every 
where  see  for  himself  that  that  which  is  close  to  a  city  will  com 
mand  thrice  as  much  rent  as  that  distant  twenty  miles,  and  ten 
times  as  much  as  that  which  is  five  hundred  miles  distant.  Now, 
almost  the  whole  land  of  the  United  Kingdom  is  in  the  condition 
of  the  best  of  that  here  described.  The  distances  are  everywhere 
small,  and  the  roads  are,  or  ought  to  be,  good  j  and  yet  the  total 
rental  of  land,  mines,  and  minerals,  is  but  £55,000,000,  and  this 
for  an  area  of  70  millions  of  acres,  giving  an  average  of  only 
about  $3.60  per  acre,  or  $9 — less  than  £2 — per  head  of  the 
population.  This  is  very  small  indeed,  and  it  tends  to  show  to 
how  great  an  extent  the  system  must  have  discouraged  agri 
culture.  In  1815,  with  a  population  of  only  twenty  millions,  the 
rental  amounted,  exclusive  of  houses,  mines,  minerals,  fisheries,  &c., 
to  fifty-two  and  a  half  millions,  and  the  exports  of  the  produce  of 
British  and  Irish  land  were  then  almost  three  times  as  great  as 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  269 

they  are  now,  with  a  population  almost  one-half  greater  than  it 
was  then. 

The  very  small  value  of  the  land  of  the  United  Kingdom,  when 
compared  with  its  advantages,  can  be  properly  appreciated  by  the 
reader  only  after  an  examination  of  the  course  of  things  elsewhere. 
The  price  of  food  raised  in  this  country  is  dependent,  almost  entirely, 
on  what  can  be  obtained  for  the  very  small  quantity  sent  to  Eng 
land.  "  Mark  Lane,"  as  it  is  said,  "  governs  the  world's  prices." 
It  does  govern  them  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  where 
prices  must  be  as  much  below  those  of  London  or  Liverpool  as 
the  cost  of  transportation,  insurance,  and  commissions,  or  there 
could  be  no  export.  Their  prices,  in  turn,  govern  those  of  Ohio 
and  Pennsylvania,  Indiana  and  Illinois,  which  must  always  be  as 
much  below  those  of  New  York  as  the  cost  of  getting  the  pro 
duce  there.  If,  now,  we  examine  into  the  mere  cost  of  transport 
ing  the  average  produce  of  an  acre  of  land  from  the  farm  to  the 
market  of  England,  we  shall  find  that  it  would  be  far  more  than 
the  average  rental  of  English  land ;  and  yet  that  rental  includes 
coal,  copper,  iron,  and  tin  mines  that  supply  a  large  portion  of  the 
world. 

Under  such  circumstances,  land  in  this  country  should  be  of 
very  small  value,  if  even  of  any ;  and  yet  the  following  facts  tend 
to  show  that  the  people  of  Massachusetts,  with  a  population  of 
only  994,000,  scattered  over  a  surface  of  five  millions  of  acres, 
with  a  soil  so  poor  that  but  2,133,000  are  improved,  and  possessed 
of  no  mines  of  coal,  iron,  tin,  lead,  or  copper,  have,  in  the  short 
period  they  have  occupied  it,  acquired  rights  in  land  equal,  per 
acre,  to  those  acquired  by  the  people  of  England  in  their  fer 
tile  soils,  with  their  rich  mines,  in  two  thousand  years.  The  cash 
value  of  the  farms  of  that  State  in  1850  was  $109,000,000,  which, 
divided  over  the  whole  surface,  would  give  $22  per  acre,  and  this, 
at  six  per  cent.,  would  yield  $1.32.  Add  to  this  the  difference 
between  wages  of  four,  six,  and  eight  shillings  per  week  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  and  twenty  or  twenty-five  dollars  per  month  in 
"Massachusetts,  and  it  will  be  found  that  the  return  in  the  latter  is 
quite  equal  to  that  in  the  former ;  and  yet  the  price  of  agricultural 

23* 


270  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

produce  generally,  is  as  much  below  that  of  England  as  the  cost  of 
freight  and  commission,  which  alone  are  greater  than  the  whole 
rent  of  English  land. 

New  York  has  thirty  millions  of  acres,  of  which  only  twelve 
millions  have  been  in  any  manner  improved ;  and  those  she  has 
been  steadily  exhausting,  because  of  the  absence  of  a  market  on  or 
near  the  land,  such  as  is  possessed  by  England.  She  has  neither 
coal  nor  other  mines  of  any  importance,  and  her  factories  are  few 
in  number ;  and  yet  the  cash  value  of  farms,  as  returned  by  the 
Marshal,  was  554  millions  of  dollars,  and  that  was  certainly  less 
than  the  real  value.  If  we  take  the  latter  at  620  millions,  it  will 
gives  $50  per  acre  for  the  improved  land,  or  an  average  of  $20  for 
all.  Taking  the  rent  at  six  per  cent,  on  $50,  we  obtain  $3  pei 
acre,  or  nearly  the  average  of  the  United  Kingdom ;  and  it  would 
be  quite  reasonable  to  make  the  mines  and  minerals  of  the  latter  a 
set-off  against  the  land  that  is  unimproved. 

If  the  reader  desire  to  understand  the  cause  of  the  small  value 
of  English  land  when  compared  with  its  vast  advantages,  he  may 
find  it  in  the  following  passage  : — 

"  Land-owners  possess  extensive  territories  which  owe  little  or  no 
thing  to  the  hand  of  the  improver ;  where  undeveloped  sources  of  pro 
duction  lie  wasting  and  useless  in  the  midst  of  the  most  certain  and 
tempting  markets  of  the  vast  consuming  population  of  this  country/ 
— Economist,  London. 

Unfortunately,  however,  those  markets  are  small,  while  the  tend 
ency  of  the  whole  British  system  is  toward  converting  the  entire 
earth  into  one  vast  farm  for  their  supply,  and  thus  preventing  the 
application  of  labour  to  the  improvement  of  land  at  home.  The 
tendency  of  prices,  whether  of  land,  labour,  or  their  products,  is 
toward  a  level,  and  whatever  tends  to  lessen  the  price  of  any  of 
those  commodities  in  Ireland,  India,  Virginia,  or  Carolina,  tends 
to  produce  the  same  effect  in  England ;  and  we  have  seen  that 
such  is  the  direct  tendency  of  English  policy  with  regard  to  the 
land  of  all  those  countries.  With  decline  in  value,  there  must 
ever  be  a  tendency  to  consolidation,  and  thus  the  policy  advocated 
by  the  Economist  produces  the  evil  of  which  it  so  much  and  so 
frequently  complains. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  271 

The  profits  of  farmers  are  generally  estimated  at  half  the 
rental,  which  would  give  for  a  total  of  rents  and  profits  about  85 
millions,  and  if  to  this  be  added  the  wages  of  agricultural  labour, 
we  obtain  but  about  125  millions,  of  which  less  than  one-third 
goes  to  the  labourer.*  We  have  here  the  necessary  result  of  conso 
lidation  of  land — itself  the  result  of  an  attempt  to  compel  the  whole 
people  of  the  world  to  compete  with  each  other  in  a  single  and 
limited  market  for  the  sale  of  raw  produce.  With  every  increase  of 
this  competition,  the  small  proprietor  has  found  himself  less  and  less 
able  to  pay  the  taxes  to  which  he  was  subjected,  and  has  finally 
been  obliged  to  pass  into  the  condition  of  a  day-labourer,  to  compete 
with  the  almost  starving  Irishman,  or  the  poor  native  of  Scotland, 
driven  into  England  in  search  of  employment ;  and  hence  have 
resulted  the  extraordinary  facts  that  in  many  parts  of  that  country, 
enjoying,  as  it  does,  every  advantage  except  a  sound  system  of 
trade,  men  gladly  labour  for  six  shillings  ($1.44)  a  week  j  that 
women  labour  in  the  fields ;  and  that  thousands  of  the  latter,  des 
titute  of  a  change  of  under-clothing,  are  compelled  to  go  to  bed 
while  their  chemises  are  being  washed. j~ 

Driven  from  the  land  by  the  cheap  food  and  cheap  labour  of 
Ireland,  the  English  labourer  has  to  seek  the  town,  and  there  he 
finds  himself  at  the  mercy  of  the  great  manufacturer;  and  thus, 

*  In  1834,  Mr.  McCulloch  estimated  the  produce  of  the  land  of  Great  Britaiu 
at  146  millions,  but  at  that  time  wheat  was  calculated  at  50s.  a  quarter,  or  almost 
one-half  more  than  the  average  of  the  last  two  or  three  years.  Other  and  larger 
calculations  may  readily  be  found ;  but  it  would  be  difficult  to  determine  what 
becomes  of  the  product  if  it  be  not  found  in  rent,  farmers'  profits,  or  labourers' 
wages. 

f  By  reference  to  the  report  of  the  Assistant  Commissioner,  charged  with  the 
inquiry  into  the  condition  of  women  and  children  employed  in  agriculture,  it  will 
be  seen  that  a  change  of  clothes  seems  to  be  out  of  the  question.  The;  upper 
parts  of  the  under-clothes  of  women  at  work,  even  their  stays,  quickly  become 
wet  with  perspiration,  while  the  lower  parts  cannot  escape  getting  equally  wet  in 
nearly  every  kind  of  work  in  which  they  are  employed,  except  in  the  driest  wea 
ther.  It  not  unfrequently  happens  that  a  woman,  on  returning  from  work,  is 
obliged  to  go  to  bed  for  an  hour  or  two  to  allow  her  clothes  to  be  dried.  It  is 
also  by  no  means  uncommon  for  her,  if  she  does  not  do  this,  to  put  them  on  again 
the  next  morning  nearly  as  wet  as  when  she  took  them  off. 


272  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

between  the  tenant-farmer  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  large  capital 
ist  on  the  other,  he  is  ground  as  between  the  upper  and  the  nether 
millstone.  The  result  is  seen  in  the  facts  heretofore  given.  He 
loses  gradually  all  self-respect,  and  he,  his  wife,  and  his  children 
become  vagrants,  and  fall  on  the  public  for  support.  Of  the  wan 
dering  life  of  great  numbers  of  these  poor  people  some  idea  may 
be  formed  from  the  following  statement  of  Mr.  Mayhew  : — * 

"  I  happened  to  be  in  the  country  a  little  time  back,  and  it  astonished 
me  to  find,  in  a  town  with  a  population  of  20,800,  that  no  less  than 
11,000  vagabonds  passed  through  the  town  in  thirteen  weeks.  We 
have  large  classes  known  in  the  metropolis  as  the  people  of  the 
streets." 

It  will,  however,  be  said  that  if  cheap  corn  tend  to  drive  him 
from  employment,  he  has  a  compensation  in  cheaper  sugar,  cotton, 
coffee,  rum,  and  other  foreign  commodities — and  such  is  undoubtedly 
the  case ;  but  he  enjoys  these  things  at  the  cost  of  his  fellow-la 
bourers,  black,  white,  and  brown,  in  this  country,  the  West  Indies, 
India,  and  elsewhere.  The  destruction  of  manufactures  in  this 
country  in  1815  and  1816  drove  the  whole  population  to  the  rais 
ing  of  food,  tobacco,  and  cotton ;  and  a  similar  operation  in  India 
drove  the  people  of  that  country  to  the  raising  of  rice,  indigo,  su 
gar,  and  cotton,  that  must  go  to  the  market  of  England,  because  of 
the  diminution  in  the  domestic  markets  for  labour  or  its  products. 
The  diminished  domestic  consumption  of  India  forces  her  cotton  into 
the  one  great  market,  there  to  compete  with  that  of  other  countries, 
and  to  reduce  their  prices.  It  forces  the  Hindoo  to  the  Mauritius, 
to  aid  in  destroying  the  poor  negroes  of  Jamaica,  Cuba,  and  Brazil ; 
but  the  more  the  sugar  and  cotton  that  must  go  to  the  distant  market, 
the  higher  will  be  the  freights,  the  lower  will  be  the  prices,  the  larger 
will  be  the  British  revenue,  the  greater  will  be  the  consumption, 
and  the  greater  will  be  the  "  prosperity"  of  England,  but  the  more 
enslaved  will  be  the  producers  of  those  commodities.  Compe 
tition  for  their  sale  tends  to  produce  low  prices,  and  the  more  the 
people  of  the  world,  men,  women,  and  children,  can  be  limited  to 
agriculture,  the  greater  must  be  the  necessity  for  dependence  on 

*  London  Labour  and  London  Poor. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  273 

England  for  cloth  and  iron,  the  higher  will  be  their  prices,  and  the 
more  wretched  will  be  the  poor  labourer  everywhere. 

The  reader  may  perhaps  understand  the  working  of  the  system 
after  an  examination  of  the  following  comparative  prices  of  com 
modities  :  — 


England  sells  — 
I>nr  iron  per  ton 

1815. 

£13    5s  Oc?   .  . 

1852. 

.  £9    Os  0</. 

Tin  per  cwt  

...700     ... 

...     520 

CopDer      " 

650 

...     5  10    0 

Lead         « 

1    6    6 

140 

England  buys  — 

Cotton,  per  Ib  ........     016      ......     006 

Sugar,  per  cwt  .......     300      ......     100 

While  these  principal  articles  of  raw  produce  have  fallen  to  one- 
third  of  the  prices  of  1815,  iron,  copper,  tin,  and  lead,  the  commo 
dities  that  she  supplies  to  the  world,  have  not  fallen  more  than 
twenty-five  per  cent.  It  is  more  difficult  to  exhibit  the  changes 
of  woven  goods,  but  that  the  planters  are  constantly  giving  more 
cotton  for  less  cloth  will  be  seen  on  an  examination  of  the  follow 
ing  facts  in  relation  to  a  recent  large-crop  year,  as  compared  with 
the  course  of  things  but  a  dozen  years  before.  From  1830  to 
1835,  the  price  of  cotton  here  was  about  eleven  cents,  which  we 
may  suppose  to  be  about  what  it  would  yield  in  England,  free  of 
freight  and  charges.  In  those  years  our  average  export  was  about 
320,000,000,  yielding  about  $35,000,000,  and  the  average  price 
of  cotton  cloth,  per  piece  of  24  yards,  weighing  5  Ibs.  12  oz.,  was 
7s.  10d.,  ($1.88,)  and  that  of  iron  £6  10s.  ($31.20.)  Our  exports 
would  therefore  have  produced,  delivered  in  Liverpool,  18,500,000 
pieces  of  cloth,  or  about  1,100,000  tons  of  iron.  In  1845  and 
1846,  the  home  consumption  of  cotton  by  the  people  of  England  was 
almost  the  same  quantity,  say  .311,  000,000  pounds,  and  the  average 
price  here  was  6£  cents,  making  the  product  $20,000,000.  The 
price  of  cloth  then  was  6s.  6fd.,  ($1.57£,)  and  that  of  iron  about 
£10,  ($48  ;)  and  the  result  was,  that  the  planters  could  have,  for 
nearly  the  same  quantity  of  cotton,  about  12,500,000  pieces  of 
cloth,  or  about  420,000  tons  of  iron,  also  delivered  in  Liverpool. 


274  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

Dividing    the    return    between    the    two    commodities,  it    stands 
thus  : — 

Average  from  1830  to  1835.  1845-6.  Loss. 

Cloth,  pieces 9,250,000  6,250,000  3,000,000 

Andiron,  tons 550,000  210,000  340,000 

The  labour  required  for  converting  cotton  into  cloth  had  been 
greatly  diminished,  and  yet  the  proportion  retained  by  the  manu 
facturers  had  greatly  increased,  as  will  now  be  shown : — 

Weight  of  Cotton  given  Retained  by  the 

Weight  of  Cotton  used.  to  the  planters.  manufacturers. 

1830  to  1835.,..  320,000,000  110,000,000 210,000,000 

1845  and  1846..  311,000,000 74,000,000 237,000,000 

In  the  first  period,  the  planter  would  have  had  34  per  cent,  of  his 
cotton  returned  to  him  in  the  form  of  cloth,  but  in  the  second  only 
24  per  cent.  The  grist  miller  gives  the  farmer  from  year  to  year 
a  larger  proportion  of  the  product  of  his  grain,  and  thus  the  latter 
has  all  the  profit  of  every  improvement.  The  cotton  miller  gives 
the  planter  from  year  to  year  a*smaller  proportion  of  the  cloth  pro 
duced.  The  one  miller  comes  daily  nearer  to  the  producer.  The 
other  goes  daily  farther  from  him,  for  with  the  increased  product 
the  surface  over  which  it  is  raised  is  increased. 

How  this  operates  on  a  large  scale  will  now  be  seen  on  an  ex 
amination  of  the  following  facts  : — The  declared  or  actual  value  of 
exports  of  British  produce  in  manufactures  in  1815  was  £51,632,971 
And  the  quantity*  of  foreign  merchandise  retained  for 

consumption  in  that  year  was £17,238,841 

This  shows,  of  course,  that  the  prices  of  the  raw  products  of  the 
earth  were  then  high  by  comparison  with  those  of  the  articles  that 
Great  Britain  had  to  sell. 

In  1849,  the  value  of  British  exports  was £63,596,025 

And  the  quantity  of  foreign  merchandise  retained  for 

consumption  was  no  less  than £80,312,717 

We  see  thus  that  while  the  value   of  exports   had  increased 

*  The  returns  of  imports  into  Great  Britain  are  given  according  to  an  official 
ralue  established  more  than  a  century  since,  and  thus  the  sum  of  the  values  i? 
&n  exact  measure  of  the  quantities  imported. 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  '2  t  5 

only  one-fourth,  the  produce  received  in  exchange  was  almost 
fice  times  greater ;  and  here  it  is  that  we  find  the  effect  of  that 
unlimited  competition  for  the  sale  in  England  of  the  raw  pro 
ducts  of  the  world,  and  limited  competition  for  the  purchase  of 
the  manufactured  ones,  which  it  is  the  object  of  the  system  to 
establish.  The  nation  is  rapidly  passing  from  the  strong  and 
independent  position  of  one  that  produces  commodities  for  sale, 
into  the  weak  and  dependent  one  of  the  mere  trader  who  depends 
for  his  living  upon  the  differences  between  the  prices  at  which 
he  sells  and  those  at  which  he  buys — that  is,  upon  his  power  to 
tax  the  producers  and  consumers  of  the  earth.  It  is  the  most  ex 
traordinary  and  most  universal  system  of  taxation  ever  devised,  and 
it  is  carried  out  at  the  cost  of  weakening  and  enfeebling  the  people 
of  all  the  purely  agricultural  countries.  The  more  completely  all 
the  world,  outside  of  England,  can  be  rendered  one  great  farm,  in 
which  men,  women,  and  :  children,  the  strong  and  the  weak,  the 
young  and  the  aged,  can  be  reduced  to  field  labour  as  the  only 
means  of  support,  the  larger  will  be  the  sum  of  those  differences 
upon  which  the  English  people  are  now  to  so  great  an  extent 
maintained,  but  the  more  rapid  will  be  the  tendency  everywhere 
toward  barbarism  and  slavery.  The  more,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
the  artisan  can  be  brought  to  the  side  of  the  farmer,  the  smaller 
must  be  the  sum  of  these  differences,  or  taxes,  and  the  greater  will 
everywhere  be  the  tendency  toward  civilization  and  freedom ;  but 
the  greater  will  be  that  English  distress  which  is  seen  always  to 
exist  when  the  producers  of  the  world  obtain  much  cloth  and  iron 
in  exchange  for  their  sugar  and  their  cotton.  The  English  system, 
is  therefore  a  war  for  the  perpetuation  and  extension  of  slavery. 

On  a  recent  occasion  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  congratu 
lated  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  nourishing  state  of  the  reve 
nue,  notwithstanding  that  they  had 

"  In  ten  years  repealed  or  reduced  the  duties  on  coffee,  timber,  cur 
rants,  wool,  sugar,  molasses,  cotton  wool,  butter,  cheese,  silk  manu 
factures,  tallow,  spirits,  copper  ore,  oil,  and  sperm,  and  an  amazing 
number  of  other  articles,  which  produced  a  small  amount  of  revenue, 
with  respect  to  which  it  is  not  material,  and  would  be  almost  prepos 
terous,  that  I  should  trouble  the  House  in  detail.  It  is  sufficient  for 


276  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

me  to  observe  this  remarkable  fact,  that  the  reduction  of  your  customs 
duties  from  1842  has  been  systematically  continuous ;  that  in  1842  you 
struck  off  nearly  £1,500,000  of  revenue  calculated  from  the  customs 
duties  ;  that  in  1843  you  struck  off  £126,000  ;  in  1844,  £279,000 ;  in 
1845,  upwards  of  £3,500,000 ;  in  1846,  upwards  of  £1,150,000 ;  in 
1847,  upwards  of  £343,000 ;  in  1848,  upwards  of  £578,000 ;  in  1849, 
upwards  of  £384,000;  in  1850,  upwards  of  £331,000;  and  in  1851, 
upwards  of  £801,000 — making  an  aggregate,  in  those  ten  years,  of 
nearly  £9,000,000  sterling/' 

The  reason  of  all  this  is,  that  the  cultivator  abroad  is  steadily 
giving  more  raw  produce  for  less  cloth  and  iron.  The  more  exclu 
sively  the  people  of  India  can  be  forced  to  devote  themselves  to  the 
raising  of  cotton  and  sugar,  the  cheaper  they  will  be,  and  the  larger 
will  be  the  British  revenue.  The  more  the  price  of  corn  can  be 
diminished,  the  greater  will  be  the  flight  to  Texas,  and  the 
cheaper  will  be  cotton,  but  the  larger  will  be  the  slave  trade  of 
America,  India,  and  Ireland;  and  thus  it  is  that  the  prosperity 
of  the  owners  of  mills  and  furnaces  in  England  is  always  greatest 
when  the  people  of  the  world  are  becoming  most  enslaved. 

It  may  be  asked,  however,  if  this  diminution  of  the  prices  of 
foreign  produce  is  not  beneficial  to  the  people  of  England.  It  is 
not,  because  it  tends  to  reduce  the  general  price  of  labour,  the 
commodity  they  have  to  sell.  Cheap  Irish  labour  greatly  dimi 
nishes  the  value  of  that  of  England,  and  cheap  Irish  grain  greatly 
diminishes  the  demand  for  labour  in  England,  while  increasing  the 
supply  by  forcing  the  Irish  people  to  cross  the  Channel.  The  land 
and  labour  of  the  world  have  one  common  interest,  and  that  is  to 
give  as  little  as  possible  to  those  who  perform  the  exchanges,  and 
to  those  who  superintend  them — the  traders  and  the  government. 
The  latter  have  everywhere  one  common  interest,  and  that  is  to 
take  as  much  as  possible  from  the  producers  and  give  as  little  as 
possible  to  the  consumers,  buying  cheaply  and  selling  dearly. 
Like  fire  and  water,  they  are  excellent  servants,  but  very  bad  mas 
ters.  The  nearer  the  artisan  comes  to  the  producer  of  the  food  and 
the  wool,  the  less  is  the  power  of  the  middleman  to  impose  taxes, 
and  the  greater  the  power  of  the  farmer  to  protect  himself.  The 
tendency  of  the  British  system,  wherever  found,  is  to  impoverish 
the  land-owner  and  the  labourer,  and  to  render  both  from  year  to 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  277 

year  more  tributary  to  the  owners  of  an  amount  of  machinery  so 
small  that  its  whole  value  would  be  paid  by  the  weekly — if  not 
even  by  the  daily — loss  inflicted  upon  the  working  population  of 
the  world  by  the  system.*  The  more  the  owners  of  that  ma 
chinery  become  enriched,  the  more  must  the  labourer  everywhere 
become  enslaved. 

That  such  must  necessarily  be  the  case  will  be  obvious  to  any 
reader  who  will  reflect  how  adverse  is  the  system  to  the  develop 
ment  of  intellect.  Where  all  are  farmers,  there  can  be  little  asso 
ciation  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  schools,  or  for  the  exchange 
of  ideas  of  any  kind.  Employment  being  limited  to  the  labours 
of  the  field,  the  women  cannot  attend  to  the  care  of  their  children, 
who  grow  up,  necessarily,  rude  and  barbarous ;  and  such  we  see 
now  to  be  the  case  in  the  West  Indies,  whence  schools  are  rapidly 
disappearing.  In  Portugal  and  Turkey  there  is  scarcely  any  pro 
vision  for  instruction,  and  in  India  there  has  been  a  decline  in  that 
respect,  the  extent  of  which  is  almost  exactly  measured  by  the 
age  of  the  foreign  occupation,  f  In  the  Punjab,  the  country  last 
acquired,  men  read  and  write,  but  in  Bengal  and  Madras  they  are 
entirely  uneducated.  Ireland  had,  seventy  years  since,  a  public 
press  of  great  efficiency,  but  it  has  almost  entirely  disappeared,  as 
has  the  demand  for  books,  which  before  the  Union  was  so  great  as  to 
warrant  the  republication  of  a  large  portion  of  those  that  appeared 
in  England.  Scotland,  too,  seventy  years  since,  gave  to  the  Empire 
many  of  its  best  writers,  but  she,  like  Ireland,  has  greatly  declined. 
How  bad  is  the  provision  for  education  throughout  England,  and 
how  low  is  the  standard  of  intellect  among  a  large  portion  of  her  ma 
nufacturing  population,  the  reader  has  seen,  and  he  can  estimate  for 
himself  how  much  there  can  be  of  the  reading  of  books  or  news 
papers  among  an  agricultural  population  hired  ty  the  day  at  the 
rate  of  six,  eight,  or  even  nine  shillings  a  week — and  it  will,  there- 

•*  The  reader  will  remark  that  of  all  the  machinery  of  England  but  a  small 
portion  is  required  for  the  forced  foreign  trade  that  is  thus  produced. 

f  The  whole  appropriation  for  the  education  of  ten  millions  of  people  in 
Western  India  is  stated,  in  a  recent  memorial  from  Bombay,  to  be  only  £12,500, 
or  $60,000,  being  six  cents  for  every  ten  persons. 

24 


278  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

fore  not  surprise  him  to  learn  that  there  is  no  daily  newspaper 
published  out  of  London.  It  is,  however,  somewhat  extraordinary 
that  in  that  city  there  should  be,  as  has  recently  been  stated,  but 
a  single  one  that  is  not  "published  at  a  loss."  That  one  circulates 
40,000  copies,  or  more  than  twice  the  number  of  all  the  other 
daily  papers  united.  This  is  a  most  unfavourable  sign,  for  centrali 
zation  and  progress  have  never  gone  hand  in  hand  with  each  other. 

The  system,  too,  is  repulsive  in  its  character.  It  tends  to  the 
production  of  discord  among  individuals  and  nations,  and  hence 
it  is  that  we  see  the  numerous  strikes  and  combinations  of  work 
men,  elsewhere  so  little  known.  Abroad  it  is  productive  of  war, 
as  is  now  seen  in  India,  and  as  was  so  recently  the  case  in 
China.  In  Ireland  it  is  expelling  the  whole  population,  and  in 
Scotland  it  has  depopulated  provinces.  The  vast  emigration  now 
going  on,  and  which  has  reached  the  enormous  extent  of  360,000 
in  a  single  year,  bears  testimony  to  the  fact  that  the  repulsive 
power  has  entirely  overcome  the  attractive  one,  and  that  the  love 
of  home,  kindred,  and  friends  is  rapidly  diminishing.  How,  in 
deed,  could  it  be  otherwise  in  a  country  in  which  labour  has  been 
so  far  cheapened  that  the  leading  journal  assures  its  readers  that 
during  a  whole  generation  "  man  has  been  a  drug,  and  population 
a  nuisance  ?" 

The  fact  that  such  a  declaration  should  be  made,  and  that  that 
and  other  influential  journals  should  rejoice  in  the  expulsion  of  a 
whole  nation,  is  evidence  how  far  an  unsound  system  can  go  to 
ward  steeling  the  heart  against  the  miseries  of  our  fellow-creatures. 
These  poor  people  do  not  emigrate  voluntarily.  They  are  forced 
to  leave  their  homes,  precisely  as  is  the  case  with  the  negro  slave 
of  Virginia;  but  they  have  not,  as  has  the  slave,  any  certainty  of 
being  fed  and  clothed  at  the  end  of  the  journey.  Nevertheless, 
throughout  England  there  is  an  almost  universal  expression  of  satis 
faction  at  the  idea  that  the  land  is  being  rid  of  what  is  held  to  be 
its  superabundant  population;  and  one  highly  respectable  jour 
nal,*  after  showing  that  at  the  same  rate  Ireland  would  be  entirely 

*  North  British  Review,  Nov.  1852. 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  279 

emptied  in  twenty-four  years,  actually  assures  its  readers  that  it 
views  the  process  "  without  either  alarm  or  regret/'  and  that  it  has  no 
fear  of  the  process  being  "  carried  too  far  or  continued  too  long." 

We  see  thus,  on  one  hand,  the  people  of  England  engaged  in 
shutting  in  the  poor  people  of  Africa,  lest  they  should  be  forced  to 
Cuba  ;  and,  on  the  other,  rejoicing  at  evictions,  as  the  best  means  of 
driving  out  the  poor  people  of  Ireland.  In  all  this  there  is  a  total 
absence  of  consistency;  but  so  far  as  the  Irish  people  are  concerned, 
it  is  but  a  natural  consequence  of  that  "unsound  social  philoso 
phy,"  based  upon  the  Eicardo-Malthusian  doctrine,  which  after 
having  annihilated  the  small  land-owner  and  the  small  trader,  de 
nies  that  the  Creator  meant  that  every  man  should  find  a  place  a,t 
his  table,  and  sees  no  more  reason  why  a  poor  labourer  should 
have  any  more  right  to  be  fed,  if  willing  to  work,  than  the  Man 
chester  cotton-spinner  should  have  to  find  a  purchaser  for  his 
cloth.  "  Labour,"  we  are  told,  is  "  a  commodity,"  and  if  men 
will  marry  and  bring  up  children  "  to  an  overstocked  and  expiring 
trade,"  it  is  for  them  to  take  the  consequences — and  "  if  we  stand 
letween  the  error  and  its  consequences,  we  stand  between  the  evil 
and  its  cure — if  we  intercept  the  penalty  (where  it  does  not 
amount  to  positive  death)  we  perpetuate  the  sin."* 

Such  being  the  state  of  opinion  in  regard  to  the  claims  of 
labour,  we  need  scarcely  be  surprised  to  find  a  similar  state  of 
things  in  regard  to  the  rights  of  property.  The  act  bf  emancipa 
tion  was  a  great  interference  with  those  rights.  However  proper 
it  might  have  been  deemed  to  free  the  negroes,  it  was  not  right  to 
cause  the  heaviest  portion  of  the  loss  to  be  borne  by  the  few  and 
weak  planters.  If  justice  required  the  act,  all  should  have  borne 
their  equal  share  of  the  burden.  So  again  in  regard  to  Ireland, 
where  special  laws  have  been  passed  to  enable  the  mortgagees  to 
sell  a  large  portion  of  the  land,  rendered  valueless  by  a  system 
that  had  for  long  years  prevented  the  Irishman  from  employing 
himself  except  in  the  work  of  cultivation.  India  appears  likely 
now  to  come  in  for  its  share  of  similar  legislation.  Centralization 
has  not  there,  we  are  told,  been  carried  far  enough.  Private  rights 

*  Edinburgh  Review,  Oct,  1349.    The  italics  are  those  of  the  reviewer. 


280  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

in  laud,  trivial  even  as  they  now  are,*  must  be  annihilated.  None, 
we  are  told,  can  be  permitted  "  to  stand  between  the  cultivator  and 
the  government,"  even  if  the  collection  of  the  taxes  "  should  render 
necessary  so  large  an  army  of  employes  as  to  threaten  the  absorption 
of  the  lion's  share"  of  them.*)"  In  regard  to  the  rights  to  land  in 
England  itself,  one  of  her  most  distinguished  writers  says  that 

"  When  the  '  sacredness  of  property*  is  talked  of,  it  should  always 
be  remembered  that  this  saereduess  does  not  belong  in  the  same  de 
gree  to  landed  property.  No  man  made  the  land.  *  *  *  The  claim 
of  the  land-owners  to  the  land  is  altogether  subordinate  to  the  general 
policy  of  the  state.  *  *  *  Subject  to  this  proviso  (that  of  compensa 
tion)  the  state  is  at  liberty  to  deal  with  landed  property  as  the  gene 
ral  interests  of  the  community  may  require,  even  to  the  extent,  if  it 
so  happen,  of  doing  with  the  whole  what  is  done  with  a  part  when 
ever  a  bill  is  passed  for  a  railroad  or  a  street.'' — /.  S.  Mill,  Principles, 
book  ii.  chap.  ii. 

In  regard  to  the  disposal  of  property  at  the  death  of  its  owner, 
the  same  author  is  of  opinion  that  "  a  certain  moderate  provision, 
such  as  is  admitted  to  be  reasonable  in  the  case  of  illegitimate 
children,  and  of  younger  children"  is  all  "that  parents  owe  to 
their  children,  and  all,  therefore,  which  the  state  owes  to  the 
children  of  those  who  die  intestate."  The  surplus,  if  any,  he  holds 
"it  may  rightfully  appropriate  to  the  general  purposes  of  the 
community." — Ibid. 

Extremes  generally  meet.  From  the  days  of  Adam  Smith  to 
the  present  time  the  policy  of  England  has  looked  in  the  direc 
tion  that  led  necessarily  to  the  impoverishment  of  the  small 
land-owner,  and  to  the  consolidation  of  land,  and  during  the  whole 
of  that  period  we  have  been  told  of  the  superior  advantages  of 
large  farms  and  great  tenant-farmers;  but  now,  when  the  in 
jurious  effects  of  the  system  are  becoming  from  day  to  day  more 
obvious,  the  question  of  the  existence  of  any  right  to  land  is  being 
discussed,  and  we  are  told  that  "  public  reasons"  existed  "  for  its 
being  appropriated,"  and  if  those  reasons  have  "  lost  their  force, 
the  thing  would  be  unjust."  From  this  to  confiscation  the  step 
would  not  be  a  very  great  one.  No  such  idea  certainly  could  exist 
in  the  mind  of  so  enlightened  a  man  as  Mr.  Mill,  who  insists  upon 

*  Seepage  160,  ante.  -f  Lawson's  Merchants' Mag.,  Dec.  1852. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  281 

compensation;  but  when  a  whole  people,  among  whom  the  produc 
tive  power  is  steadily  diminishing  as  individual  fortunes  become 
more  and  more  colossal,  are  told  that  the  proprietors  of  land,  great 
and  small,  receive  compensation  for  its  use,  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  they  have  been  enabled  to  possess  themselves  of  a  mo 
nopoly  of  its  powers,  and  that  rent  is  to  be  regarded  as  "  the  re 
compense  of  no  sacrifice  whatever,"  but  as  being  "  received  by 
those  who  neither  labour  nor  put  by,  but  merely  hold  out  their 
hands  to  receive  the  offerings  of  the  rest  of  the  community/'* 
can  we  doubt  that  the  day  is  approaching  when  the  right  to  pro 
perty  in  land  will  be  tested  in  England,  as  it  has  elsewhere  been  ? 
Assuredly  not.  Ricardo-Malthusianism  tends  directly  to  what  is 
commonly  called  Communism,  and  at  that  point  will  England 
arrive,  under  the  system  which  looks  to  the  consolidation  of  the 
land,  the  aggrandizement  of  the  few,  and  the  destruction  of  the 
physical,  moral,  intellectual,  and  political  powers  of  the  whole  body 
of  labourers,  abroad  and  at  home. 

Where  population  and  wealth  increase  together,  there  is 
always  found  a  growing  respect  for  the  rights  of  persons  and 
property.  Where  they  decline,  that  respect  diminishes;  and  the 
tendency  of  the  whole  British  politico-economical  system  being 
toward  the  destruction  of  population  and  wealth  at  home  and 
abroad,  it  tends  necessarily  toward  agrarianism  in  its  worst  form. 
That  such  is  the  tendency  of  things  in  England  we  have  the  assur 
ance  of  the  London  Times,  by  which  it  has  recently  been  shown, 
says  Mr.  Kay, 

"  That  during  the  last  half  century,  every  thing  has  been  done  to 
deprive  the  peasant  of  any  interest  in  the  preservation  of  public  order; 
of  any  wish  to  maintain  the  existing  constitution  of  society  ;  of  all 
hope  of  raising  himself  in  the  world,  or  of  improving  his  condition  in 
life ;  of  all  attachment  to  his  country ;  of  all  feelings  of  there  really 
existing  any  community  of  interest  between  himself  and  the  higher 
ranks  of  society  ;  and  of  all  consciousness  that  he  has  any  thing  to 
lose  by  political  changes ;  and  that  every  thing  has  been  done  to  ren 
der  him  dissatisfied  with  his  condition,  envious  of  the  richer  classes, 
and  discontented  with  the  existing  order  of  things. 

"The  labourer,"  he  continues  "has  no  longer  any  connection  with 
the  land  which  he  cultivates  ;  he  has  no  stake  in  the  country  ;  he  has 

*  Senior,  Outlines  of  Political  Economy,  152. 
24* 


282  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

nothing  to  lose,  nothing  to  defend,  and  nothing  to  hope  for.  The 
word  "  cottage"  has  ceased  to  mean  what  it  once  meant — a  small 
house  surrounded  by  its  little  plot  of  land,  which  the  inmate  might 
cultivate  as  he  pleased,  for  the  support  and  gratification  of  his  family 
and  himself.  The  small  freeholds  have  long  since  been  bought  up 
and  merged  in  the  great  estates.  Copyholds  have  become  almost  ex 
tinct,  or  have  been  purchased  by  the  great  land-owners.  The  com 
mons,  upon  which  the  villagers  once  had  the  right  of  pasturing  cattle 
for  their  own  use,  and  on  which,  too,  the  games  and  pastimes  of  tho 
villages  were  held,  have  followed  the  same  course:  they  are  enclosed, 
and  now  form  part  of  the  possessions  of  the  great  landowners.  Small 
holdings  of  every  kind  have,  in  like  manner,  almost  entirely  disap 
peared.  Farms  have  gradually  become  larger  and  larger,  and  are 
now,  in  most  parts  of  the  country,  far  out  of  the  peasant's  reach,  on 
account  of  their  size,  and  of  the  amount  of  capital  requisite  to  culti 
vate  them.  The  gulf  between  the  peasant  and  the  next  step  in  the 
social  scale — the  farmer — is  widening  and  increasing  day  by  day. 
The  labourer  is  thus  left  without  any  chance  of  improving  his  condi 
tion.  His  position  is  one  of  hopeless  and  irremediable  dependence. 
The  workhouse  stands  near  him,  pointing  out  his  dismal  fate  if  he 
falls  one  step  lower,  and,  like  a  grim  scarecrow,  warning  him  to  be 
take  himself  to  some  more  hospitable  region,  where  he  will  find  no 
middle-age  institutions  opposing  his  industrious  efforts." — Vol.  i.  301. 

This  is  slavery,  and  it  is  an  indication  of  poverty,  and  yet  we 
hear  much  of  the  wealth  of  England.  Where,  however,  is  it  ? 
The  whole  rental  of  the  land,  houses,  mills,  furnaces,  and  mines  of 
the  United  Kingdom  but  little  exceeds  one  hundred  millions  of 
pounds  sterling,  of  which  about  one-half  is  derived  from  build 
ings — and  if  we  take  the  whole,  perishable  and  imperishable, 
at  twenty  years'  purchase,  it  is  but  two  thousand  millions.*  If 
next  we  add  for  machinery  of  all  kinds,  ships,  farming  stock  and 
implements,  600  millions, f  we  obtain  a  total  of  only  2600  millions, 
or  12,500  millions  of  dollars,  as  the  whole  accumulation  of  more 
than  two  thousand  years  given  to  the  improvement  of  the  land, 
the  building  of  houses,  towns,  and  cities — and  this  gives  but  little 
over  400  dollars  per  head.  Sixty  years  since,  New  York  had  a 


*  At  a  recent  discussion  in  the  London  Statistical  Society,  land  in  England 
was  valued  at  thirty  years'  purchase,  houses  at  fifteen,  and  land  in  Ireland  at 
eighteen. 

f  This  will  appear  a  very  small  estimate  when  compared  with  those  usually 
made,  but  it  is  equal  to  the  total  production  of  the  land  and  labour  of  the  country 
for  a  year  and  a  half,  if  not  for  a  longer  period ;  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  prove 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  288 

population  of  only  340,000,  and  it  was  a  poor  State,  and  to  this 
hour  it  has  no  mines  of  any  importance  that  are  worked. 
Throughout  the  whole  period,  hei*  people  have  been  exhausting  her 
soil,  and  the  product  of  wheat,  on  lands  that  formerly  gave  twenty- 
five  and  thirty  bushels  to  the  acre,  has  fallen  to  six  or  eight,*  and 
yet  her  houses  and  lands  are  valued  at  almost  twelve  hundred 
millions  of  dollars,  and  the  total  value  of  the  real  and  personal 
estate  is  not  less  than  fifteen  hundred  millions,  or  about  $500 
per  head — and  these  are  the  accumulations  almost  of  the  present 
century. 

The  apparent  wealth  of  England  is,  however,  great,  and  it  is  so 
for  the  same  reason  that  Rome  appeared  so  rich  in  the  days  of 
Crassus  and  Lucullus,  surrounded  by  people  owning  nothing 
when  compared  with  the  days  when  Cincinnatus  was  surrounded 
by  a  vast  body  of  small  proprietors.  Consolidation  of  the  land 
and  enormous  manufacturing  establishments  have  almost  anni 
hilated  the  power  profitably  to  use  small  capitals,  and  the  conse 
quence  is  that  their  owners  are  forced  to  place  them  in  saving 
funds,  life-insurance  companies,  and  in  banks  at  small  interest, 
and  by  all  of  these  they  are  lent  out  to  the  large  holders  of  land 
and  large  operators  in  mills,  furnaces,  railroads,  &c.  As  the  land 
has  become  consolidated,  it  has  been  covered  with  mortgages,  and 
the  effect  of  this  is  to  double  the  apparent  quantity  of  property. 
While  the  small  proprietors  held  it,  it  was  assessed  to  the  revenue 
as  land  only.  Now,  it  is  assessed,  first,  as  land,  upon  which  its 
owner  pays  a  tax,  and  next  as  mortgage,  upon  which  the  mort 
gagee  pays  the  income-tax.  The  land-owner  is  thus  holding  his 
property  with  other  people's  means,  and  the  extent  to  which  this 
is  the  case  throughout  England  is  wonderfully  great.  Banks 
trade  little  on  their  own  capital,  but  almost  entirely  on  that  of 

that  if  the  whole  labour  and  capital  of  the  country  were  applied  to  that  purpose — 
food  and  clothing  being  supplied  from  abroad — it  could  not  produce  a  quantity 
of  commodities  equal  in  value  to  those  now  accumulated  in  England.  Even, 
however,  were  the  amount  placed  at  a  thousand  millions,  the  amount  of  wealth 
would  still  be  small,  under  the  circumstances  of  the  case. 
*  See  page  105  ante. 


284  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

others.*  The  capital  of  the  Bank  of  England  having  been  ex 
pended  by  the  government,  it  has  always  traded  exclusively  on  its 
deposites  and  circulation.  The  -East  India  Company  has  no  capi 
tal,  but  a  very  large  debt,  and  nothing  to  represent  it ;  and  the 
example  of  these  great  institutions  is  copied  by  the  smaller  ones. 
Life-insurance  companies  abound,  and  the  capitals  are  said  to  be 
large,  but  "nine-tenths"  of  them  are  declared  to  be  "in  a  state  of 
ruinous  insolvency  ;"f  and  it  is  now  discovered  the  true  mode  of 
conducting  that  business  is  to  have  no  capital  whatsoever.  The 
trade  of  England  is  to  a  great  extent  based  on  the  property  of 
foreigners,  in  the  form  of  wool,  silk,  cotton,  tobacco,  sugar,  and 
other  commodities,  sent  there  for  sale,  and  these  furnish  much 
of  the  capital  of  her  merchants.  While  holding  this  vast  amount 
of  foreign  capital,  they  supply  iron  and  cloth,  for  which  they  take 
the  bonds  of  the  people  of  other  nations;  and  whenever  the  amount 
of  these  bonds  becomes  too  large,  there  comes  a  pressure  in  the 
money  market,  and  the  prices  of  all  foreign  commodities  are  forced 
down,  to  the  ruin  of  their  distant  owners.  To  the  absence  of  real 
capitalj  it  is  due  that  revulsions  are  so  frequent,  and  so  destruc 
tive  to  all  countries  intimately  connected  with  her;  and  it  is  a  neces 
sary  consequence  of  the  vast  extent  of  trading  on  borrowed. capital 
that  the  losses  by  bankruptcy  are  so  astonishingly  great.  From 
1839  to  1843,  a  period  of  profound  peace,  eighty-two  private 
bankers  became  bankrupt ;  of  whom  forty-six  paid  no  dividendsj 
twelve  paid  under  twenty -five  per  cent.,  twelve  under  fifty  per 


*  The  latest  number  of  the  Bankers'  Magazine  contains  statements  of  two 
banks  whose  joint  capitals  and  reserved  funds  are  about  £200,000,  while  their 
investments  are  about  a  million  ! — and  this  would  seem  to  be  about  the  usual 
state  of  affairs  with  most  of  the  English  banks. 

f  Bankers'  Magazine,  Sept.  1852. 

J  The  amount  of  expenditure  for  English  railroads  is  put  down  at  from  two  to 
three  hundreds  of  millions  of  pounds ;  and  yet  the  real  investment  was  only  that 
of  the  labour  employed  in  grading  the  roads,  building  the  bridges,  driving  the 
tunnels,  and  making  the  iron  ;  and  if  we  take  that  at  £8000  per  mile,  we  obtain 
only  54  millions.  All  the  balance  was  merely  a  transfer  of  property  already  ex 
isting  from  one  owner  to  another,  as  in  the  case  of  the  land,  which  in  some  cases 
cost  ten  or  twelve  thousands  of  pounds  per  mile. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  285 

cent.,  three  under  seventy-five  per  cent.,  and  two  under  one  hun 
dred  per  cent,  j  leaving  seven  unascertained  at  the  date  of  the 
report  from  which  this  statement  is  derived.  The  last  revulsion 
brought  to  light  the  fact  that  many  of  the  oldest  and  most  respect 
able  houses  in  London  had  been  for  years  trading  entirely  on  credit, 
and  without  even  a  shilling  of  capital ;  and  in  Liverpool  the  de 
struction  was  so  universal  that  it  was  difficult  to  discover  more 
than  half  a  dozen  houses  to  whom  a  cargo  could  be  confided. 
Revulsions  are  a  necessary  consequence  of  such  a  state  of  things, 
and  at  each  and  every  one  of  them  the  small  manufacturer  and  the 
small  trader  or  land-owner  are  more  and  more  swept  away,  while 
centralization  steadily  increases — and  centralization  is  adverse  to 
the  growth  of  wealth  and  civilization.  The  whole  fabric  tends 
steadily  more  and  more  to  take  the  form  of  an  inverted  pyramid, 
that  may  be  thus  represented  : — 

Ships  and  mills. 

Land. 

Labour. 

In  confirmation  of  this  view  we  have  the  following  facts  given 
in  a  speech  of  Mr.  George  Wilson,  at  a  reunion  in  Manchester,  a 
few  weeks  since  : — 

"  In  the  five  counties  of  Buckingham,  Dorset,  Wilts,  Northampton, 
and  Salop,  63  members  were  returned  by  52,921  voters,  while  only 
the  same  number  were  returned  by  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire,  with 
89,669  county  and  84,612  borough  voters,  making  a  total  of  174,281. 
So  that,  if  they  returned  members  in  proportion  to  voters  alone,  thos«J 
five  counties  could  only  claim  19  ;  while,  if  Lancashire  took  their  pro 
portion,  it  would  be  entitled  to  207.  There  were  twelve  large  cities 
or  boroughs  (taking  London  as  a  double  borough)  returning  24  mem 
bers,  with  192,000  voters,  and  a  population  of  3,268,218,  and  388,000 
inhabited  houses.  On  the  other  side,  24  members  were  returned  by 
Andover,  Buckingham,  Chippenham,  Cockermouth,  Totnes,  Harwich, 
Bedford,  Lymington,  Marlborough,  Great  Marlborough,  and  Rich 
mond;  but  they  had  only  3,569  voters,  67,434  inhabitants,  and  1,373 
inhabited  houses.  *  *  The  most  timid  reformer  and  most  mode 
rate  man  would  hardly  object  to  the  disfranchisement  of  those 
boroughs  which  had  a  population  less  than  5000,  and  to  handing  over 
the  20  members  to  those  large  constituencies." 

As  the  people  of  Ireland  are  driven  from  the  land  to  London, 
Liverpool,  or  America,  the  claims  of  that  country  to  representation 


286  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

necessarily  diminish;  and  so  with  Scotland,  as  the  Highlands  anl 
the  Isles  undergo  the  process  of  wholesale  clearance.  The  &ame 
system  that  depopulates  them  tends  to  depopulate  the  agricultural 
counties  of  England,  and  to  drive  their  people  to  seek  employment 
in  the  great  cities  and  manufacturing  towns;  and  this,  according 
to  Mr.  McCulloch,*  is  one  of  the  principal  advantages  resulting 
from  absenteeism.  The  wealthy  few  congregate  in  London, 
and  the  vast  mass  of  poor  labourers  in  the  lanes  and  alleys,  the 
streets  and  the  cellars,  of  London  and  Liverpool,  Birmingham  and 
Sheffield,  Manchester  and  Leeds;  and  thus  is  there  a  daily  increas 
ing  tendency  toward  having  the  whole  power  over  England  and 
the  world  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  owners  of  a  small  quantity  of 
machinery — the  same  men  that  but  a  few  years  since  were  described 
by  Sir  Robert  Peel  as  compelling  children  to  work  sixteen  hours  a 
day  during  the  week,  and  to  appropriate  a  part  of  Sunday  to  clean 
ing  the  machinery — and  the  same  that  recently  resisted  every  at 
tempt  at  regulating  the  hours  of  labour,  on  the  ground  that  all  the 
profit  resulted  from  the  power  to  require  "  the  last  hour."  Many 
of  these  gentlemen  are  liberal,  and  are  actuated  by  the  best  inten 
tions  ;  but  they  have  allowed  themselves  to  be  led  away  by  a  false 
and  pernicious  theory  that  looks  directly  to  the  enslavement  of  the 
human  race,  and  are  thus  blinded  to  the  consequences  of  the  sys 
tem  they  advocate;  but  even  were  they  right,  it  could  not  but 
be  dangerous  to  centralize  nearly  the  whole  legislative  power  in  a 
small  portion  of  the  United  Kingdom,  occupied  by  people  whose 
existence  is  almost  entirely  dependent  on  the  question  whether  cot 
ton  is  cheap  or  dear,  and  who  are  liable  to  be  thrown  so  entirely 
under  the  control  of  their  employers. 

With  each  step  in  this  direction,  consolidation  of  the  land  tends 
to  increase,  and  there  is  increased  necessity  for  "cheap  labour." 
"  The  whole  question"  of  England's  manufacturing  superiority,  we 
are  told,  "has  become  one  of  a  cheap  and  abundant  supply  of 
labour. "f  That  is,  if  labour  can  be  kept  down,  and  the  labourer 
can  be  prevented  from  having  a  choice  of  employers,  then  the  sys- 

*  See  page  240,  ante.  f  North  British  Review,  Nov.  1852. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  287 

tern  may  be  maintained,  but  not  otherwise.  Where,  however,  the 
labourer  has  not  the  power  of  determining  for  whom  he  will  work, 
he  is  a  slave;  and  to  that  condition  it  is  that  the  system  tends  to 
reduce  the  English  people,  as  it  has  already  done  with  the  once 
free  men  of  India.  Alarmed  at  the  idea  that  the  present  flight 
from  England  may  tend  to  give  the  labourer  power  to  select  his 
employer,  and  to  have  some  control  over  the  amount  of  his  reward, 
the  London  Times  suggests  the  expediency  of  importing  cheap 
labourers  from  Germany  and  other  parts  of  the  continent,  to  aid  iri 
underworking  their  fellow-labourers  in  America  and  in  India. 

It  has  been  well  said,  that,  according  to  some  political  econo 
mists,  "man  was  made  for  the  land,  and  not  the  land  for  man." 
In  England,  it  would  almost  seem  as  if  he  had  been  made  for 
cotton  mills.  Such  would  appear  now  to  be  the  views  of  the  Times, 
as,  a  quarter  of  a  century  since,  they  certainly  were  of  Mr.  Huskis- 
son.  The  object  of  all  sound  political  economy  is  that  of  raising 
the  labourer,  and  increasing  the  dignity  of  labour.  That  of 
the  English  system  is  to  "  keep  labour  down/'  and  to  degrade  the 
labourer  to  the  condition  of  a  mere  slave ;  and  such  is  its  effect 
everywhere — and  nowhere  is  its  tendency  in  that  direction  more 
obvious  than  in  England  itself.*  Consolidation  of  land  on  one 
side,  and  a  determination  to  underwork  the  world  on  the  other, 
are  producing  a  rapid  deterioration  of  material  and  moral  condition, 
and,  as  a  natural  consequence,  there  is  a  steady  diminution  in  the 
power  of  local  self-government.  The  diminution  of  the  agricultural 
population  and  the  centralization  of  exchanges  have  been  attended 
by  decay  of  the  agricultural  towns,  and  their  remaining  people 
become  less  and  less  capable  of  performing  for  themselves  those 


*  This  tendency  is  exhibited  in  most  of  the  books  that  treat  of  the  system. 
Thus,  Mr.  McCulloch  insists  on  the  beneficial  effect  of  the  fear  of  taxation,  as  will 
be  seen  in  the  following  passage  : — 

"To  the  desire  of  rising  in  the  world,  implanted  in  the  breast  of  every  indi 
vidual,  an  increase  of  taxation  superadds  the  fear  of  being  cast  down  to  a  lower 
station,  of  being  deprived  of  conveniences  and  gratifications  which  habit  has 
rendered  all  but  indispensable — and  the  combined  influence  of  the  two  principles 
produces  results  that  could  not  be  produced  by  the  unassisted  agency  of  either." 

This  is  only  the  lash  of  the  slave-driver  in  another  form. 


288  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

duties  to  which  their  predecessors  were  accustomed — and  hence  it 
is  that  political  centralization  grows  so  rapidly.  Scarcely  a  session 
of  Parliament  now  passes  without  witnessing  the  creation  of  a  new 
commission  for  the  management  of  the  poor,  the  drainage  of  towns, 
the  regulation  of  lodging-houses,  or  other  matters  that  could  be 
better  attended  to  by  the  local  authorities,  were  it  not  that  the 
population  is  being  so  rapidly  divided  into  two  classes  widely 
remote  from  each  other — the  poor  labourer  and  the  rich  absentee 
landlord  or  other  capitalist. 

With  the  decay  of  the  power  of  the  people  over  their  own  actions, 
the  nation  is  gradually  losing  its  independent  position  among  the 
nations  of  the  earth.  It  is  seen  that  the  whole  u  prosperity"  of  the 
country  depends  on  the  power  to  purchase  cheap  cotton,  cheap 
sugar,  and  other  cheap  products  of  the  soil,  and  it  is  feared  that 
something  may  interfere  to  prevent  the  continuance  of  the 
system  which  maintains  the  domestic  slave  trade  of  this  coun 
try.  We  are,  therefore,  told  by  all  the  English  journals,  that 
"  England  is  far  too  dependent  on  America  for  her  supply  of 
cotton.  There  is,"  says  the  Daily  NewSj  "  too  much  risk  in  rely 
ing  on  any  one  country,  if  we  consider  the  climate  and  seasons 
alone ;  but  the  risk  is  seriously  aggravated  when  the  country  is 
not  our  own,  but  is  inhabited  by  a  nation  which,  however  friendly 
on  the  whole,  and  however  closely  allied  with  us  by  blood  and 
language,  has  been  at  war  with  us  more  than  once,  and  might 
possibly  some  day  be  so  again." 

From  month  to  month,  and  from  year  to  year,  we  have  the  same 
note,  always  deepening  in  its  intensity, — and  yet  the  dependence 
increases  instead  of  diminishing.  On  one  day,  the  great  prosperity 
of  the  country  is  proved  by  the  publication  of  a  long  list  of  new 
cotton  mills,  and,  on  the  next,  we  are  told  of — 

"  The  frightful  predicament  of  multitudes  of  people  whom  a  natural 
disaster  [a  short  crop  of  cotton]  denies  leave  to  toil — who  must  work  or 
starve,  but  who  cannot  work  because  the  prime  material  of  their  work 
is  not  to  be  obtained  in  the  world." — Lawson's  Merchants'  Magazine, 
Dec.  1852. 

What  worse  slavery  can  we  have  than  this  ?  It  is  feared  that 
this  country  will  not  continue  to  supply  cheap  cotton,  and  it  is 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  289 

known  that  India  cannot  enlarge  its  export,  and,  therefore,  the  whole 
mind  of  England  is  on  the  stretch  to  discover  some  new  source 
from  which  it  may  be  derived,  that  may  tend  to  increase  the  com 
petition  for  its  sale,  and  reduce  it  lower  than  it  even  now  is.  At 
one  time,  it  is  hoped  that  it  may  be  grown  in  Australia — but  cheap 
labour  cannot  there  be  had.  At  another,  it  is  recommended  as 
expedient  to  encourage  its  culture  in  Natal,  (South  Africa,)  as 
there  it  can  be  grown,  as  we  are  assured,  by  aid  of  cheap — cr 
slave — labour,  from  India.* 

It  is  to  this  feeling  of  growing  dependence,  and  growing  weak 
ness,  that  must  be  attributed  the  publication  of  passages  like  the 
following,  from  the  London  Times : — 

"  It  used  to  be  said  that  if  Athens  and  Lacedsemon  could  but  make 
up  their  minds  to  be  good  friends  and  make  a  common  cause,  they 
would  be  masters  of  the  world.  The  wealth,  the  science,  the  maritime 
enterprise,  and  daring  ambition  of  the  one,  assisted  by  the  population, 
the  territory,  the  warlike  spirit,  and  stern  institutions  of  the  other, 
could  not  fail  to  carry  the  whole  world  before  them.  That  was  a  pro 
ject  hostile  to  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  mankind,  and  ministering 
only  to  national  vanity.  A  far  grander  object,  of  more  easy  and  more 
honourable  acquisition,  lies  before  England  and  the  United'  States, 
and  all  other  countries  owning  our  origin  and  speaking  our  language. 
Let  them  agree  not  in  an  alliance  offensive  and  defensive,  but 
simply  to  never  go  to  war  with  one  another.  Let  them  permit  one 
another  to  develop  as  Providence  seems  to  suggest,  and  the  British 
race  will  gradually  and  quietly  attain  to  a  pre-eminence  beyond  the 
reach  of  mere  policy  and  arms.  The  vast  and  ever-increasing  inter 
change  of  commodities  between  the  several  members  of  this  great 
family,  the  almost  daily  communications  now  opened  across,  not  one, 
but  several  oceans,  the  perpetual  discovery  of  new  means  of  locomo 
tion,  in  which  steam  itself  now  bids  fair  to  be  supplanted  by  an  equally 
powerful  but  cheaper  and  more  convenient  agency — all  promise  to 
unite  the  whole  British  race  throughout  the  world  in  one  social  and 
commercial  unity,  more  mutually  beneficial  than  any  contrivance  of 
politics.  Already,  what  does  Austria  gain  from  Hungary,  France 
from  Algiers,  Russia  from  Siberia,  or  any  absolute  monarchy  from  its 
abject  population,  or  what  town  from  its  rural  suburbs,  that  England 
does  not  derive  in  a  much  greater  degree  from  the  United  States,  and 
the  United  States  from  England?  What  commercial  partnership, 
what  industrious  household  exhibits  so  direct  an  exchange  of  services? 
All  that  is  wanted  is  that  we  should  recognise  this  fact,  and  give  it  all 
the  assistance  in  our  power.  We  cannot  be  independent  of  one  an 
other.  The  attempt  is  more  than  unsocial ;  it  is  suicidal.  Could 

*  Barter,  The  Dorp  and  the  Veld. 
25 


290  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

either  dispense  with  the  labour  of  the  other,  it  would  immediately 
lose  the  reward  of  its  own  industry.  Whether  national  jealousy,  or 
the  thirst  for  warlike  enterprise,  or  the  grosser  appetite  of  commercial 
monopoly,  attempt  the  separation,  the  result  and  the  crime  are  the 
same.  We  are  made  helps  meet  for  one  another.  Heaven  has  joined 
all  who  speak  the  British  language,  and  what  Heaven  has  joined  let 
no  man  think  to  put  asunder." 

The  allies  of  England  have  been  Portugal  and  Ireland,  India 
and  the  West  Indies,  and  what  is  their  condition  has  been  shown. 
With  Turkey  she  has  had  a  most  intimate  connection,  and  that 
great  empire  is  now  prostrate.  What  inducement  can  she,  then, 
offer  in  consideration  of  an  alliance  with  her  ?  The  more  intimate 
our  connection,  the  smaller  must  be  the  domestic  market  for  food 
and  cotton,  the  lower  must  be  their  prices,  and  the  larger  must  be 
the  domestic  slave  trade,  now  so  rapidly  increasing.  Her  system 
tends  toward  the  enslavement  of  the  labourer  throughout  the  earth, 
and  toward  the  destruction  everywhere  of  the  value  of  the  land ; 
and  therefore  it  is  that  she  needs  allies.  Therefore  it  is  that  the 
Times,  a  journal  that  but  ten  years  since  could  find  no  term  of 
vituperation  sufficiently  strong  to  be  applied  to  the  people  of  this 
country,  now  tells  its  readers  that — 

"  It  is  the  prospect  of  these  expanding  and  strengthening  affinities 
that  imparts  so  much  interest  to  the  mutual  hospitalities  shown  by 
British  and  American  citizens  to  the  diplomatic  representatives  of  the 

sister  States." 

"  To  give  capital  a  fair  remuneration/'  it  was  needed  that  "  the  price 
of  English  labour  should  be  kept  doivn  ;"  and  it  has  been  kept  down 
to  so  low  a  point  as  to  have  enabled  the  cotton  mills  of  Manchester 
to  supersede  the  poor  Hindoo  in  his  own  market,  and  to  drive  him 
to  the  raising  of  cheap  sugar  to  supply  the  cheap  labour  of  Eng 
land — and  to  supersede  the  manufacturers  of  this  country,  and 
drive  our  countrymen  to  the  raising  of  cheap  corn  to  feed  the 
cheap  labour  of  England,  driven  out  of  Ireland.  Cheap  food 
next  forces  the  exportation  of  negroes  from  Maryland  .and  Vir 
ginia  to  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  there  to  raise  cheap  cotton  to 
supersede  the  wretched  cultivator  of  India ;  and  thus,  in  succes 
sion,  each  and  every  part  of  the  agricultural  world  is  forced  into 
competition  with  every  other  part,  and  the  labourers  of  the  world 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  291 

become  from  day  to  day  more  enslaved ;  and  all  because  the  people 
of  England  are  determined  that  the  whole  earth  shall  become  one 
great  farm,  with  but  a  single  workshop,  in  which  shall  be  fixed 
the  prices  of  all  its  occupants  have  to  sell  or  need  to  buy.  For 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world,  there  exists  a  nation 
whose  whole  system  of  policy  is  found  in  the  shopkeeper's  maxim, 
Buy  cheap  and  sell  dear;  and  the  results  are  seen  in  the  fact  that 
that  nation  is  becoming  from  day  to  day  less  powerful  and  less  capa 
ble  of  the  exercise  of  self-government  among  the  community  of  na 
tions.  From  day  to  day  England  is  more  and  more  seen  to  be  losing 
the  independent  position  of  the  farmer  who  sells  the  produce  of  his 
own  labour,  and  occupying  more  and  more  that  of  the  shopkeeper, 
anxious  to  conciliate  the  favour  of  those  who  have  goods  to  sell  or 
goods  to  buy ;  and  with  each  day  there  is  increased  anxiety  lest 
there  should  be  a  change  in  the  feelings  of  the  customers  who  bring 
cotton  and  take  in  exchange  cloth  and  iron.  The  records  of  history 
might  be  searched  in  vain  for  a  case  like  hers — for  a  nation  volun 
tarily  subjecting  itself  to  a  process  of  the  most  exhaustive  kind. 
They  present  no  previous  case  of  a  great  community,  abounding  in 
men  of  high  intelligence,  rejoicing  in  the  diminution  of  the  propor 
tion  of  its  people  capable  of  feeding  themselves  and  others,  and  in 
the  increasing  proportion  requiring  to  be  Jed.  England  now  ex 
ports  in  a  year  nearly  400,000  men  and  women  that  have  been 
raised  at  enormous  cost,*  and  she  rejoices  at  receiving  in  exchange 
800,000  infants  yet  to  be  raised.  She  exports  the  young,  and  re 
tains  the  aged.  She  sends  abroad  the  sound,  and  keeps  at  home 
the  unsound.  She  expels  the  industrious,  and  retains  the  idle. 
She  parts  with  the  small  capitalist,  but  she  keeps  the  pauper. 
She  sends  men  from  her  own  land,  and  with  them  the  commodities 
they  must  consume  while  preparing  for  cultivation  distant  lands  ; — 
and  all  these  things  are  regarded  as  evidences  of  growing  wealth 
and  power.  She  sends  men  from  where  they  could  make  twelve 
or  twenty  exchanges  in  a  year  to  a  distance  from  which  they  can 

*  Estimating  the  average  cost  of  raising  men  and  women  at  only  $1000  each, 
the  present  forced  export  is  equal  to  sending  abroad  a  capital  of  four  hundred 
millions  of  dollars,  no  return  from  which  is  to  be  looked  for. 


292  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

make  but  one ;  and  this  is  taken  as  evidence  of  the  growth  of  com 
merce.  She  sends  her  people  from  the  land  to  become  trampers 
in  her  roads,  or  to  seek  refuge  in  filthy  lanes  and  cellars ;  and  this 
is  hailed  as  tending  to  promote  the  freedom  of  man.  In  all  this, 
however,  she  is  but  realizing  the  prophecies  of  Adam  Smith,  in  rela 
tion  to  the  determination  of  his  countrymen  to  see  in  foreign  trade 
alone  "  England's  treasure." 

In  all  nations,  ancient  and  modern,  freedom  has  come  with  the 
growth  of  association,  and  every  act  of  association  is  an  act  of  com 
merce.  Commerce  and  freedom  grow,  therefore,  together,  and 
whatever  tends  to  lessen  the  one  must  tend  equally  to  lessen  the 
other.  The  object  of  the  whole  British  system  is  to  destroy  the 
power  of  association,  for  it  seeks  to  prevent  everywhere  the  growth 
of  the  mechanic  arts,  and  without  them  there  can  be  no  local  places 
of  exchange,  and  none  of  that  combination  so  needful  to  material, 
moral,  intellectual,  and  political  improvement.  That  such  has  been 
its  effect  in  Portugal  and  Turkey,  the  West  Indies  and  India,  and 
in  our  Southern  States,  we  know — and  in  all  of  these  freedom  de 
clines  as  the  power  of  association  diminishes.  That  such  has  been 
its  effect  in  Ireland  and  Scotland,  the  reader  has  seen.  In  Eng 
land  we  may  see  everywhere  the  same  tendency  to  prevent  the 
existence  of  association,  or  of  freedom  of  trade.  Land,  the  great 
instrument  of  production,  is  becoming  from  day  to  day  more  conso 
lidated.  Capital,  the  next  great  instrument,  is  subjected  to  the 
control  of  the  Bank  of  England — an  institution  that  has  probably 
caused  more  ruin  than  any  other  that  has  ever  existed.*  Associa- 

*  The  recent  movement  of  this  institution  in  raising  the  rate  of  interest  affords 
a  striking  example  of  its  power,  and  of  the  absence  of  the  judgment  required  for 
its  exercise.  For  two  years  past  the  bank  has  aided  in  raising  prices,  but  now  it 
desires  to  reduce  them,  and  at  the  cost,  necessarily,  of  the  weaker  portions  of  the 
community,  for  the  rich  can  always  take  care  of  themselves.  The  whole  tendency 
of  its  operations  is  toward  making  the  rich  richer  and  the  poor  poorer.  Sir  Robert 
Peel  undertook  to  regulate  the  great  machine,  but  his  scheme  for  that  purpose 
failed,  because  he  totally  misconceived  the  cause  of  the  evil,  and  of  course  applied 
the  wrong  remedy.  It  was  one  that  could  only  aggravate  the  mischief,  as  he 
could  scarcely  have  failed  to  see,  had  he  studied  the  subject  with  the  care  its  im 
portance  merited. 


DOMESTIC   AXD   FOREIGN.  293 

tions  for  banking  or  manufacturing  purposes  are  restrained  by  a 
system  of  responsibility  that  tends  to  prevent  prudent  men  from 
taking  part  in  their  formation.  The  whole  tendency  of  the  sys 
tem  is  to  fetter  and  restrain  the  productive  power ;  and  hence  it  is 
that  it  has  proved  necessary  to  establish  the  fact  that  the  great 
Creator  had  made  a  serious  mistake  in  the  laws  regulating  the  in 
crease  of  food  and  of  men,  and  that  the  cheapened  labourer  was 
bound  to  correct  the  error  by  repressing  that  natural  desire  for 
association  which  leads  to  an  increase  of  population.  The  conse 
quences  of  all  this  are  seen  in  the  fact  that  there  is  in  that  coun 
try  no  real  freedom  of  commerce.  There  is  no  competition  for  the 
purchase  of  labour,  and  the  labourer  is  therefore  a  slave  to  the 
capitalist.  There  is  no  competition  for  the  use  of  capital,  and  its 
owner  is  a  slave  to  his  banker,  who  requires  him  to  content  him 
self  with  the  smallest  profits.  There  is  scarcely  any  power 
to  sell  land,  for  it  is  everywhere  hedged  round  with  entails, 
jointures,  and  marriage  settlements,  that  fetter  and  enslave  its 
owner.  There  is  no  competition  for  obtaining  "  maidens  in  mar 
riage,"  for  the  Chronicle  assures  us  that  marriage  now  rarely  takes 
place  until  the  cradle  has  become  as  necessary  as  the  ring  ;*  and 
when  that  is  the  case,  the  man  will  always  be  found  a  tyrant  and 
the  woman  a  slave.  In  the  effort  to  destroy  the  power  of  associa 
tion,  and  the  freedom  of  trade  and  of  man  abroad,  England  has  in 
a  great  degree  annihilated  freedom  at  home ;  and  all  this  she  has 
done  because,  from  the  day  of  the  publication  of  The  Wealth  of 
Nations,  her  every  movement  has  looked  to  the  perpetuation  of  the 
system  denounced  by  its  author  as  a  "  manifest  violation  of  the 
most  sacred  rights  of  mankind." 

*  Page  230,  ante. 


25* 


294  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

CHAPTER  XV. 

HOW   CAN   SLAVERY   BE   EXTINGUISHED? 

How  can  slavery  be  extinguished,  and  man  be  made  free  ? 
This  question,  as  regarded  England,  was  answered  some  years 
since  by  a  distinguished  anti-corn-law  orator,  when  he  said  that 
for  a  long  time  past,  in  that  country,  two  men  had  been  seeking 
one  master,  whereas  the  time  was  then  at  hand  when  two  masters 
would  be  seeking  one  man.  Now,  we  all  know  that  when  two 
men  desire  to  purchase  a  commodity,  it  rises  in  value,  and  its 
owner  finds  himself  more  free  to  determine  for  himself  what  to  do 
with  it  than  he  could  do  if  there  were  only  one  person  desiring  to 
have  it,  and  infinitely  more  free  than  he  could  be  if  there  were  two 
sellers  to  one  buyer.  To  make  men  free  there  must  be  competi 
tion  for  the  purchase  of  their  services,  and  the  more  the  competi 
tion  the  greater  must  be  their  value,  and  that  of  the  men  who  have 
them  to  sell. 

It  has  already  been  shown*  that  in  purely  agricultural  com 
munities  there  can  be  very  little  competition  for  the  purchase  of 
labour;  and  that  such  is  the  fact  the  reader  can  readily  satisfy 
himself  by  reflecting  on  the  history  of  the  past,  or  examining  the 
condition  of  man  as  he  at  present  exists  among  the  various  nations 
of  the  earth.  History  shows  that  labour  has  become  valuable,  and 
that  man  has  become  free,  precisely  as  the  artisan  has  been  enabled 
to  take  his  place  by  the  side  of  the  ploughman — precisely  as  labour 
has  become  diversified — precisely  as  small  towns  have  arisen  in 
which  the  producer  of  food  and  wool  could  readily  exchange  for 
cloth  and  iron — precisely  as  manure  could  more  readily  be  obtained 
to  aid  in  maintaining  the  productiveness  of  the  soil — and  precisely, 
therefore,  as  men  have  acquired  the  power  of  associating  with  their, 
fellow-men.  With  the  growth  of  that  power  they  have  everywhere 
been  seen  to  obtain  increased  returns  from  land,  increased  reward 

*  Chap.  VII.  ante. 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  295 

of  labour,  and  increased  power  to  accumulate  the  means  of  making 
roads,  establishing  schools,  and  doing  all  other  things  tending  to  the 
improvement  of  their  modes  of  action  and  their  habits  of  thought; 
and  thus  it  is  that  freedom  of  thought,  speech,  action,  and  trade 
have  always  grown  with  the  growth  of  the  value  of  labour  and 
land. 

It  is  desired  to  abolish  the  trade  in  slaves.  No  such  trade  could 
exist  were  men  everywhere  free ;  but  as  they  are  not  so,  it  has  in 
many  countries  been  deemed  necessary  to  prohibit  the  sale  of  men 
frpm  off  the  land,  as  preliminary  to  the  establishment  of  freedom. 
Nothing  of  this  kind,  however,  can  now  be  looked  for,  because  there 
exists  no  power  to  coerce  the  owners  of  slaves  to  adopt  any  such 
measures ;  nor,  if  it  did  exist,  would  it  be  desirable  that  it  should 
be  exercised,  as  it  would  make  the  condition  of  both  the  slave  and 
his  master  worse  than  it  is  even  now.  Neither  is  it  necessary,  be 
cause  there  exists  "a  higher  law" — a  great  law  of  the  Creator — 
that  will  effectually  extinguish  the  trade  whenever  it  shall  be  per 
mitted  to  come  into  activity. 

"\Vhy  is  it  that  men  in  Africa>  sell  their  fellow-men  to  be  trans 
ported  to  Cuba  or  *Brazil  ?  For  the  same  reason,  obviously,  that 
other  men  sell  flour  in  Boston  or  Baltimore  to  go  to  Liverpool  or 
Rio  Janeiro — because  it  is  cheaper  in  the  former  than  in  the  latter 
cities.  If,  then,  we  desired  to  put  a  stop  to  the  export,  would  not 
our  object  be  effectually  accomplished  by  the  adoption  of  measures 
that  would  cause  prices  to  be  higher  in  Boston  than  in  Liverpool, 
and  higher  in  Baltimore  than  in  Rio  ?  That  such  would  be  the 
case  must  be  admitted  by  all.  If,  then,  we  desired  to  stop  the 
export  of  negroes  from  Africa,  would  not  our  object  be  effectually 
and  permanently  attained  could  we  so  raise  the  value  of  man  in 
Africa  that  he  would  be  worth  as  much,  or  more,  there  than  in 
Cuba?  Would  not  the  export  of  Coolies  cease  if  man  could  bo 
rendered  more  valuable  in  India  than  in  Jamaica  or  Guiana  ? 
Would  not  the  destruction  of  cottages,  the  eviction  of  their  inha 
bitants,  and  the  waste  of  life  throughout  Ireland,  at  once  be  termi 
nated,  could  man  be  made  as  valuable  there  as  he  is  here  ?  Would 
uot  the  export  of  the  men,  women,  and  children  of  Great  Britain 


296  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

cease,  if  labour  there  could  be  brought  to  a  level  with  that  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania  ?  Assuredly  it  would ; 
for  men  do  not  voluntarily  leave  home,  kindred,  and  friends.  On 
the  contrary,  so  great  is  the  attachment  to  home,  that  it  requires, 
in  most  cases,  greatly  superior  attractions  to  induce  them  to  emi 
grate.  Adam  Smith  said  that,  of  all  commodities,  man  was  the 
hardest  to  be  removed — and  daily  observation  shows  that  he  was 
right. 

To  terminate  the  African  slave  trade,  we  need,  then,  only  to 
raise  the  value  of  man  in  Africa.  To  terminate  the  forced  export 
of  men,  women,  and  children  from  Ireland,  we  need  only  to  raise 
the  value  of  men  in  Ireland;  and  to  put  an  end  to  our  own  domestic 
slave  trade,  nothing  is  needed  except  that  we  raise  the  value  of 
man  in  Virginia.  To  bring  the  trade  in  slaves,  of  all  colours  and 
in  all  countries,  at  once  and  permanently  to  a  close,  we  need  to 
raise  the  value  of  man  at  home,  let  that  home  be  where  it  may. 
How  can  this  be  done  ?  By  precisely  the  same  course  of  action 
that  terminated  the  export  of  slaves  from  England  to  Ireland.  In 
the  days  of  the  Plantagenets,  men  were  so  much  more  valuable  in 
the  latter  country  than  in  the  former  one,  that  the  market  of  Ire 
land  was  "glutted  with  English  slaves;"  but  as,  by  degrees,  the 
artisan  took  his  place  by  the  side  of  the  English  ploughman,  the 
trade  passed  away,  because  towns  arose  and  men  became  strong  to 
defend  their  rights  as  they  were  more  and  more  enabled  to  asso 
ciate  with  each  other.  Since  then,  the  artisan  has  disappeared 
from  Ireland,  and  the  towns  have  decayed,  and  men  have  become 
weak  because  they  have  lost  the  power  to  associate,  and,  therefore, 
it  is  that  the  market  of  England  has  been  so  glutted  with  Irish 
slaves  that  man  has  been  declared  to  be  "  a  drug,  and  population 
a  nuisance." 

Such  precisely  has  been  the  course  of  things  in  Africa.  For 
two  centuries  it  had  been  deemed  desirable  to  have  from  that 
country  the  same  "  inexhaustible  supply  of  cheap  labour"  that 
Ireland  has  supplied  to  England ;  and,  therefore,  no  effort  was 
spared  to  prevent  the  negroes  from  making  any  improvement  in 
their  modes  of  cultivation.  "  It  was,"  says  Macpherson,  "  the 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  297 

x^ir1 •/*'  to  prevent  the  Africans  from  arriving  at  per 
fection  in  any  of  their  pursuits,  "from  a  fear  of  interfering  with 
established  brancSes  of  trade  elsewhere."  More  properly,  it  was 
the  English  policy.  "The  truth  is,"  said  Mr.  Pitt,  in  1791— 

"  There  is  no  nation  in  Europe  which  has  plunged  so  deeply  into 
this  guilt  as  Britain.  We  stopped  the  natural  progress  of  civiliza 
tion  in  Africa.  We  cut  her  off  from  the  opportunity  of  improvement. 
We  kept  her  down  in  a  state  of  darkness,  bondage,  ignorance,  and 
bloodshed.  We  have  there  subverted  the  whole  order  of  nature ;  we 
have  aggravated  every  natural  barbarity,  and  furnished  to  every  man 
motives  for  committing,  under  the  name  of  trade,  acts  of  perpetual 
hostility  and  perfidy  against  his  neighbour.  Thus  had  the  perversion 
of  British  commerce  carried  misery  instead  of  happiness  to  one  whole 
quarter  of  the  globe.  False  to  the  very  principles  of  trade,  unmindful 
of  our  duty,  what  almost  irreparable  mischief  had  we  done  to  that 
continent !  We  had  obtained  as  yet  only  so  much  knowledge  of  its 
productions  as  to  show  that  there  was  a  capacity  for  trade  which  we 
checked." 

How  was  all  this  done  ?  By  preventing  the  poor  Africans  from 
obtaining  machinery  to  enable  them  to  prepare  their  sugar  for 
market,  or  for  producing  cotton  and  indigo  and  combining  them  into 
cloth — precisely  the  same  course  of  operation  that  was  pursued 
in  Jamaica  with  such  extraordinary  loss  of  life.  Guns  and  gun 
powder  aided  in  providing  cheap  labour,  and  how  they  were  sup 
plied,  even  so  recently  as  in  1807,  will  be  seen  on  a  perusal  of  the 
following  passage,  from  an  eminent  English  authority,  almost  of 
our  own  day  : — 

"  A  regular  branch  of  trade  here,  at  Birmingham,  is  the  manufacture 
of  guns  for  the  African  market.  They  are  made  for  about  a  dollar 
and  a  half:  the  barrel  is  filled  with  water,  and  if  the  water  does  not 
come  through,  it  is  thought  proof  sufficient.  Of  course,  they  burst 
when  fired,  and  mangle  the  wretched  negro,  who  has  purchased  them 
upon  the  credit  of  English  faith,  and  received  them,  most  probably,  as 
the  price  of  human  flesh  !  No  secret  is  made  of  this  abominable  trade, 
yet  the  government  never  interferes,  and  the  persons  concerned  in  it 
are  not  marked  and  shunned  as  infamous." — Southcy's  "  Espriella's 
Letters:' 

It  is  deemed  now  desirable  to  have  cheap  labour  applied  to  the 
collection  of  gold-dust  and  hides,  palm-leaves  and  ivory,  and  the 
description  of  commodities  at  present  exported  to  that  country 
will  be  seen  by  the  following  cargo-list  of  the  brig  Lily,  which  sailed 
from  Liverpool  a  few  weeks  since  for  the  African  coast,  but  blew 


298  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

up  and  was  destroyed  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Isle  of  Man,  to 
wit:— 

50  tons  gunpowder, 

20  puncheons  rum, 

A  quantity  of  firearms,  and 

Some  bale-goods. 

Such  are  not  the  commodities  required  for  raising  the  value  of 
man  in  Africa,  and  until  it  can  be  raised  to  a  level  with  his  value 
in  Cuba,  the  export  of  men  will  be  continued  from  the  African 
coast  as  certainly  as  the  export  from  Ireland  will  be  continued  so 
long  as  men  are  cheaper  there  than  elsewhere ;  and  as  certainly  as 
the  trade  described  in  the  following  letter  will  be  continued,  so  long 
as  the  people  of  India  shall  be  allowed  to  do  nothing  but  raise  sugar 
and  cotton  for  a  distant  market,  and  shall  thus  be  compelled  to 
forego  all  the  advantages  so  long  enjoyed  by  them  under  the  native 
governments,  when  the  history  of  the  cotton  manufacture  was  the 
history  of  almost  every  family  in  India  : — 

"  Havana,  Feb.  11,  1853. 

"  On  the  morning  of  the  7th,  arrived  from  Amoa,  Singapore,  and 
Jamaica,  the  British  ship  Panama,  Fisher,  522  tons,  131  days'  passage, 
with  261  Asiatics  (Coolies)  on  board,  to  be  introduced  to  the  labour 
of  the  island,  purchased  for  a  service  of  four  years.  The  loss  on  the 
passage  was  a  considerable  percentage,  being  90  thrown  overboard. 
The  speculators  in  this  material  are  Messrs.  Viloldo,  Wardrop  &  Co., 
who  have  permission  of  the  government  to  cover  five  thousand  sub 
jects.  The  cargo  is  yet  held  in  quarantine. 

"  On  the  8th  inst.,  arrived  from  Amoa  and  St.  Helena,  the  ship 
Blenheim,  Molison,  808  tons,  104  days'  passage,  bringing  to  the  same 
consignees  412  Coolies.  Died  on  the  voyage,  38.  Money  will  be 
realized  by  those  who  have  the  privilege  of  making  the  introduction, 
and  English  capital  will  find  some  play ;  but  I  doubt  very  much  whe 
ther  the  purposes  of  English  philanthropy  will  be  realized,  for,  reasoning 
from  the  past,  at  the  expiration  of  the  four  years,  nearly  all  have  been 
sacrificed,  while  the  condition  of  African  labour  will  be  unmitigated. 
A  short  term  and  cupidity  strain  the  lash  over  the  poor  Coolie,  and  he 
dies ;  is  secreted  if  he  lives,  and  advantage  taken  of  his  ignorance  for 
extended  time  when  once  merged  in  plantation-service,  where  investi 
gation  can  be  avoided." — Correspondence  of  the  New  York  Journal  of 
Commerce. 

This  trade  is  sanctioned  by  the  British  government  because  it 
provides  an  outlet  for  Hindoo  labour,  rendered  surplus  by  the  de 
struction  of  the  power  of  association  throughout  India,  and  yet  the 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  299 

same  government  expends  large  sums  annually  in  closing  an  outlet 
for  African  labour,  rendered  surplus  by  the  rum  and  the  gunpowder 
that  are  supplied  to  Africa  ! 

To  stop  the  export  of  men  from  that  important  portion  of  the 
earth,  it  is  required  that  we  should  raise  the  value  of  man  in 
Africa,  and  to  do  this,  the  African  must  be  enabled  to  have  ma 
chinery,  to  bring  the  artisan  to  his  dgor,  to  build  towns,  to  have 
schools,  and  to  make  roads.  To  give  to  the  African  these  things, 
and  to  excite  in  hisjbreast  a  desire  for  something  better  than  rum, 
gunpowder,  and  murder,  and  thus  to  raise  the  standard  of  morals 
and  the  value  of  labour,  has  been  the  object  of  the  founders  of  the 
Kepublic  of  Liberia,  one  of  the  most  important  and  excellent  un 
dertakings  of  our  day.  Thus  far,  however,  it  has  been  looked 
upon  very  coldly  by  all  the  nations  of  Europe,  and  it  is  but  recently 
that  it  has  received  from  any  of  them  the  slightest  recognition;  and 
even  now  it  is  regarded  solely  as  being  likely  to  aid  in  providing 
i-hcap  labour,  to  be  employed  in  increasing  the  supplies  of  sugar 
and  cotton,  and  thus  cheapening  those  commodities  in  the  market 
of  the  world,  at  the  cost  of  the  slaves  of  America  and  of  India. 

Nevertheless  it  has  made  considerable  progress.  Its  numbers 
now  amount  to  150,000,*  a  large  proportion  of  whom  are  na 
tives,  upon  whom  the  example  of  the  colonists  from  this  country 
has  operated  to  produce  a  love  of  industry  and  a  desire  for  many 
of  the  comforts  of  civilized  life.  By  aid,  generally,  of  persua 
sion,  but  occasionally  by  that  of  force,  it  has  put  an  end  to  the 
export  of  men  throughout  a  country  having  several  hundred  miles 
of  coast.  The  difficulty,  however,  is  that  wages  are  very  low,  and 
thus  there  is  but  little  inducement  for  the  immigration  of  men 
from  the  interior,  or  from  this  country.f  Much  progress  has  thus 
oeen  made,  yet  it  is  small  compared  with  what  might  be  made 
could  the  republic  offer  greater  inducements  to  settlers  from  the 
interior,  or  from  this  country ;  that  is,  could  it  raise  the  value  of 
man,  ridding  "tself  of  cheap  labour.  Where  there  is  nothing  but 


*  Message  of  President  Roberts,  Dec.  1849. 

f  Lecture  on  the  Relations  of  Free  and  Slave  Labour,  by  David  Christy,  p.  46. 


TOO  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

agriculture,  the  men  must  be  idle  for  very  much  of  their  time>  and 
tne  women  and  children  must  be  idle  or  work  in  the  field ;  and 
where  people  are  forced  to  remain  idle  they  remain  poor  and  weak, 
and  they  can  have  neither  towns,  nor  roads,  nor  schools.  Were  it 
in  the  power  of  the  republic  to  say  to  the  people  for  hundreds  of 
miles  around,  that  there  was  a  demand  for  labour  every  day  in  the 
year,  and  at  good  wages — tljat  at  one  time  cotton  was  to  be  picked, 
and  at  another  it  was  to  be  converted  into  cloth — that  in  the 
summer  the  cane  was  to  be  cultivated,  in  the  autumn  the  sugar 
was  to  be  gathered,  and  in  the  winter  it  was  to  be  refined — 
that  at  one  time  houses  and  mills  were  to  be  built,  and  at  another 
roads  to  be  made — that  in  one  quarter  stone  was  to  be  quarried, 
and  in  another  timber  to  be  felled — there  would  be  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  Africans  who  would  come  to  seek  employment,  and 
each  man  that  came  would  give  strength  to  the  republic  while  di 
minishing  the  strength  of  the  little  tyrants  of  the  interior,  who 
would  soon  find  men  becoming  less  abundant  and  more  valuable,  and 
it  would  then  become  necessary  to  try  to  retain  their  subjects. 
Every  man  that  came  would  desire  to  have  his  wife  and  children 
follow  him,  and  it  would  soon  come  to  be  seen  that  population  and 
wealth  were  synonymous,  as  was  once  supposed  to  be  the  case  hi 
Europe.  By  degrees,  roads  would  be  made  into  the  interior,  and 
civilized  black  men  would  return  to  their  old  homes,  carrying 
with  them  habits  of  industry  and  intelligence,  a  knowledge  of 
agriculture  and  of  the  processes  of  the  coarser  manufactures,  and 
with  every  step  in  this  direction  labour  would  acquire  new  value, 
and  men  would  everywhere  become  more  free. 

To  accomplish  these  things  alone  and  unassisted  might,  however, 
require  almost  centuries,  and  to  render  assistance  would  be  to  re 
pudiate  altogether  the  doctrine  of  cheap  labour,  cheap  sugar,  and 
cheap  cotton.  Let  us  suppose  that  on  his  last  visit  to  England, 
President  Roberts  should  have  invoked  the  aid  of  the  English 
Premier  in  an  address  to  the  following  effect,  and  then  see  what 
must  have  been  the  reply  : — 
"  My  Lord : 

"We  have  in  our  young  republic  a  population  of  150,000, scat- 


DOMESTIC   AXD   FOREIGN.  301 

tered  over  a  surface  capable  of  supporting  the  whole  population  of 
England,  and  all  engaged  in  producing  the  same  commodities, 
— as  a  consequence  of  which  we  have,  and  can  have,  but  little  trade 
among  ourselves.  During  a  large  portion  of  the  year  our  men 
have  little  to  do,  and  they  waste  much  time,  and  our  women  and 
children  are  limited  altogether  to  the  labours  of  the  field,  to  the 
great  neglect  of  education.  Widely  scattered,  we  have  much  need 
of  roads,  but  are  too  poor  to  make  them,  and  therefore  much  pro 
duce  perishes  on  the  ground.  We  cannot  cultivate  bulky  articles, 
because  the  cost  of  transportation  would  be  greater  than  their  pro 
duct  at  market;  and  of  those  that  we  do  cultivate  nearly  the 
whole  must  be  sent  to  a  distance,  with  steady  diminution  in  the 
fertility  of  the  soil.  We  need  machinery  and  mechanics.  With 
them  we  could  convert  our  cotton  and  our  indigo  into  cloth,  and 
thus  find  employment  for  women  and  children.  Mechanics  would 
need  houses,  and  carpenters  and  blacksmiths  would  find  employ 
ment,  and  gradually  towns  would  arise,  and  our  people  would  be 
from  day  to  day  more  enabled  to  make  their  exchanges  at  home, 
while  acquiring  increased  power  to  make  roads,  and  land  would 
become  valuable,  while  men  would  become  from  day  to  day  more 
free.  Immigration  from  the  interior  would  be  large,  and  from 
year  to  year  we  should  be  enabled  to  extend  our  relations  with  the 
distant  tribes,  giving  value  to  their  labour  and  disseminating  know 
ledge,  and  thus  should  we,  at  no  distant  period,  be  enabled  not 
only  to  put  an  end  to  the  slave  trade,  but  also  to  place  millions  of 
barbarians  on  the  road  to  wealth  and  civilization.  To  accomplish 
these  things,  however,  we  need  the  aid  and  countenance  of  Great 
Britain." 

The  reply  to  this  would  necessarily  have  been — 
"  Mr.  President : 

"  We  are  aware  of  the  advantage  of  diversification  of  employments, 
for  to  that  were  our  own  people  indebted  for  their  freedom.  With 
the  immigration  of  artisans  came  the  growth  of  our  towns,  the 
value  of  our  land,  and  the  strength  of  the  nation.  We  are  aware, 
too,  of  the  advantages  of  those  natural  agents  which  so  much 

assist  the  powers  of  man ;  but  it  is  contrary  to  British  policy  to 

26 


302  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

aid  in  the  establishment  of  manufactures  of  any  description  in  any 
part  of  the  world.  On  the  contrary,  we  have  spared  no  pains  to 
annihilate  those  existing  in  India,  and  we  are  now  maintaining 
numerous  colonies,  at  vast  expense,  for  the  single  purpose  of 
'  stifling  in  their  infancy  the  manufactures  of  other  nations.'  We 
need  large  supplies  of  cotton,  and  the  more  you  send  us,  the 
cheaper  it  will  be ,  whereas,  if  you  make  cloth,  you  will  have  no 
cotton  to  sell,  no  cloth  to  buy.  We  need  cheap  sugar,  and  if  you 
have  artisans  to  eat  your  sugar,  you  will  have  none  to  send  us  to 
pay  for  axes  or  hammers.  We  need  cheap  hides,  palm-leaves,  and 
ivory,  and  if  your  people  settle  themselves  in  towns,  they  will  have 
less  time  to  employ  themselves  in  the  collection  of  those  commodi 
ties.  We  need  cheap  labour,  and  the  cheaper  your  cotton  and 
your  sugar  the  lower  will  be  the  price  of  labour.  Be  content. 
Cultivate  the  earth,  and  send  its  products  to  our  markets,  and  we 
will  send  you  cloth  and  iron.  You  will,  it  is  true,  find  it  difficult 
to  make  roads,  or  to  build  schools,  and  your  women  will  have  to 
work  in  the  sugar-plantations;  but  this  will  prevent  the  growth  of 
population,  and  there  will  be  less  danger  of  your  being  compelled 
to  resort  to  '  the  inferior  soils'  that  yield  so  much  less  in  return 
to  labour.  The  great  danger  now  existing  is  that  population  may  . 
outrun  food,  and  all  our  measures  in  Ireland,  India,  Turkey,  and 
other  countries  are  directed  toward  preventing  the  occurrence  of 
so  unhappy  a  state  of  things." 

Let  us  next  suppose  that  the  people  of  Virginia  should  address 
the  British  nation,  and  in  the  following  terms : — 

lt  We  are  surrounded  by  men  who  raise  cotton  wool,  and  we 
have  in  our  own  State  land  unoccupied  that  could  furnish  more 
sheep's  wool  than  would  be  required  for  clothing  half  our  nation. 
Within  our  limits  there  are  water-powers  now  running  to  waste 
that  could,  if  properly  used,  convert  into  cloth  half  the  cotton 
raised  in  the  Union.  We  have  coal  and  iron  ore  in  unlimited 
quantity,  and  are  daily  wasting  almost  as  much  labour  as  would 
be  required  for  making  all  the  cloth  and  iron  we  consume  in  a 
month.  Nevertheless,  we  can  make  neither  cloth  nor  iron.  Many 
of  our  people  have  attempted  it,  but  they  have,  almost  without 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  80- 

exception,  been  ruined.  When  you  charge  high  prices  for 
cloth,  we  build  mills;  but  no  sooner  are  they  built  than  there 
comes  a  crisis  at  ( the  mighty  heart  of  commerce/  and  cloths  are 
poured  into  our  markets  so  abundantly  and  sold  so  cheaply,  that 
our  people  become  bankrupt.  When  you  charge  high  prices  for 
iron,  as  you  now  do,  we  build  furnaces ;  but  no  sooner  are  they 
ready  than  your  periodical  crisis  comes,  and  then  you  sell  iron  so 
cheaply  that  the  furnace-master  is  ruined.  As  a  consequence  of 
this,  we  are  compelled  to  devote  ourselves  to  raising  tobacco  and 
corn  to  go  abroad,  and  our  women  and  children  are  barbarized, 
while  our  lands  are  exhausted.  You  receive  our  tobacco,  and  you 
pay  us  but  three  pence  for  that  which  sells  for  six  shillings,  and 
we  are  thus  kept  poor.  Our  corn  is  too  bulky  to  go  abroad  in  its 
rude  state,  and  to  enable  it  to  go  to  market  we  are  obliged  to 
manufacture  it  into  negroes  for  Texas.  We  detest  the  domestic 
slave  trade,  and  it  is  abhorrent  to  our  feelings  to  sell  a  negro,  but 
we  have  no  remedy,  nor  can  we  have  while,  because  of  inability 
to  have  machinery,  labour  is  so  cheap.  If  we  could  make  iron, 
or  cloth,  we  should  need  houses,  and  towns,  and  carpenters,  and 
blacksmiths,  and  then  people  from  other  States  would  flock  to  us, 
and  our  towns  and  cities  would  grow  rapidly,  and  there  would  be  a 
great  demand  for  potatoes  and  turnips,  cabbages  and  carrots,  peas 
and  beans,  and  then  we  could  take  from  the  Jand  tons  of  green 
crops  where  now  we  obtain  only  bushels  of  wheat.  Land  would 
then  become  valuable,  and  great  plantations  would  become  divided 
into  small  farms,  and  with  each  step  in  this  direction  labour  would 
become  more  productive,  and  the  labourer  would  from  day  to  day  ac 
quire  the  power  to  determine  for  whom  he  would  work  and  how 
he  should  be  paid — and  thus,  as  has  been  the  case  in  all  other 
countries,  our  slaves  would  become  free  as  we  became  rich." 

To  this  what  would  be  the  reply  ?  Must  it  not  be  to  the  follow 
ing  effect : — 

"  We  need  cheap  food,  and  the  more  you  can  be  limited  to  agri 
culture,  the  greater  will  be  the  quantity  of  wheat  pressing  upon 
our  market,  and  the  more  cheaply  will  our  cheap  labourers  be  fed. 
We  need  large  revenue,  and  the  more  you  can  be  forced  to  raise  to- 


304  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

bacco,  the  larger  our  consumption,  and  the  larger  our  revenue. 
We  need  cheap  cotton  and  cheap  sugar,  and  the  less  the  value  of 
men,  women,  and  children  in  Virginia,  the  larger  will  be  tho  ex 
port  of  slaves  to  Texas,  the  greater  will  be  the  competition  of  the 
producers  of  cotton  and  sugar  to  sell  their  commodities  in  our 
markets,  and  the  lower  will  be  prices,  while  the  greater  will  be 
the  competition  for  the  purchase  of  our  cloth,  iron,  lead,  and  copper, 
and  the  higher  will  be  prices.  Our  rule  is  to  buy  cheaply  and 
sell  dearly,  and  it  is  only  the  slave  that  submits  dearly  to  buy  and 
cheaply  to  sell.  Our  interest  requires  that  we  should  be  the  great 
work-shop  of  the  world,  and  that  we  may  be  so  it  is  needful  that 
we  should  use  all  the  means  in  our  power  to  prevent  other  nations 
from  availing  themselves  of  their  vast  deposites  of  ore  and  fuel ; 
for  if  they  made  iron  they  would  obtain  machinery,  and  be  en 
abled  to  call  to  their  aid  the  vast  powers  that  nature  has  every 
where  provided  for  the  service  of  man.  We  desire  that  there  shall 
be  no  steam-engines,  no  bleaching  apparatus,  no  furnaces,  no  roll 
ing-mills,  except  our  own;  and  our  reason  for  this  is,  that  we  are 
quite  satisfied  that  agriculture  is  the  worst  and  least  profitable 
pursuit  of  man,  while  manufactures  are  the  best  and  most  profitable. 
It  is  our  wish,  therefore,  that  you  should  continue  to  raise  tobacco 
and  corn,  and  manufacture  the  corn  into  negroes  for  Texas  and 
Arkansas;  and  the  more  extensive  the  slave  trade  the  better  we 
shall  be  pleased,  because  we  know  that  the  more  negroes  you  ex 
port  the  lower  will  be  the  price  of  cotton.  Our  people  are  be 
coming  from  day  to  day  more  satisfied  that  it  is  '  for  their  advan 
tage'  that  the  negro  shall  'wear  his  chains  in  peace,'  even 
although  it  may  cause  the  separation  of  husbands  and  wives, 
parents  and  children,  and  although  they  know  that,  in  default  of 
other  employment,  women  and  children  are  obliged  to  employ 
their  labour  in  the  culture  of  rice  among  the  swamps  of  Caro 
lina,  or  in  that  of  sugar  among  the  richest  and  most  unhealthy 
lands  of  Texas.  This  will  have  one  advantage.  It  will  lessen 
the  danger  of  over-population." 

.  Again,  let  us  suppose  the  people  of  Ireland  to  come  to  their 
brethren  across  the  Channel  and  say — "  Half  a  century  since  we 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  305 

were  rapidly  improving.  We  had  large  manufactures  of  various 
kinds,  and  our  towns  were  thriving,  and  schools  were  increasing 
in  number,  making  a  large  demand  for  books,  with  constantly  in 
creasing  improvement  in  the  demand  for  labour,  and  in  its  quality. 
Since  then,  however,  a  lamentable  change  has  taken  place.  Our 
mills  and  furnaces  have  everywhere  been  closed,  and  our  people 
have  been  compelled  to  depend  entirely  upon  the  land;  the  conse 
quence  of  which  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  they  have  been  required  to 
pay  such  enormous  rents  that  they  themselves  have  been  unable  to 
consume  any  thing  but  potatoes,  and  have  starved  by  hundreds  of 
thousands,  because  they  could  find  no  market  for  labour  that  would 
enable  them  to  purchase  even  of  them  enough  to  support  life. 
Labour  has  been  so  valueless  that  our  houses  have  been  pulled 
down  by  hundreds  of  thousands,  and  we  find  ourselves  now  com 
pelled  to  separate  from  each  other,  husbands  abandoning  wives, 
sons  abandoning  parents,  and  brothers  abandoning  sisters.  We 
fear  that  our  whole  nation  will  disappear  from  the  earth;  and  the 
only  mode  of  preventing  so  sad  an  event  is  to  be  found  in  raising 
the  value  of  labour.  We  need  to  make  a  market  at  home  for 
it  and  for  the  products  of  our  land;  but  that  we  cannot  have 
unless  we  have  machinery.  Aid  us  in  this.  Let  us  supply  our 
selves.  Let  us  make  cloth  and  iron,  and  let  us  exchange  those 
commodities  among  ourselves  for  the  labour  that  is  now  every 
where  being  wasted.  We  shall  then  see  old  towns  flourish  and 
new  ones  arise,  and  we  shall  have  schools,  and  our  land  will  be 
come  valuable,  while  we  shall  become  free." 

The  answer  to  this  would  necessarily  be  as  follows : — 
"  It  is  to  the  cheap  labour  that  Ireland  has  supplied  that  we 
are  indebted  for  '  our  great  works,'  and  cheap  labour  is  now  more 
than  ever  needed,  because  we  have  not  only  to  underwork  the 
Hindoo,  but  also  to  underwork  several  of  the  principal  nations  of 
Europe  and  America.  That  we  may  have  cheap  labour  we  must 
have  cheap  food.  Were  we  to  permit  you  to  become  manufac 
turers  you  would  make  a  market  at  home  for  your  labour  and 
wages  would  rise,  and  you  would  then  be  able  to  eat  meat  and 
wheaten  bread,  instead  of  potatoes,  and  the  effect  of  this  would  be  to 

26* 


306  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

raise  the  price  of  food;  and  thus  should  we  be  disabled  from  com 
peting  with  the  people  of  Germany,  of  Belgium,  and  of  America, 
in  the  various  markets  of  the  world.  Further  than  this,  were  you 
to  become  manufacturers  you  would  consume  a  dozen  pounds  of 
cotton  where  now  you  consume  but  one,  and  this  would  raise  the 
price  of  cotton,  as  the  demand  for  Germany  and  Russia  has  now 
raised  it,  while  your  competition  with  us  might  lower  the  price  of 
cloth.  We  need  to  have  cheap  cotton  while  selling  dear  cloth. 
We  need  to  have  cheap  food  while  selling  dear  iron.  Our  para 
mount  rule  of  action  is,  *  buy  in  the  cheapest  market  and  sell  in 
the  dearest  one'- — and  the  less  civilized  those  with  whom  we  have  to 
deal  the  cheaper  we  can  always  buy  and  the  dearer  we  can>  sell. 
It  is,  therefore,  to  our  interest  that  your  women  should  labour  in 
the  field,  and  that  your  children  should  grow  up  uneducated  and 
barbarous.  Even,  however,  were  we  so  disposed,  you  could  not 
compete  with  us.  Your  labour  is  cheap,  it  is  true,  but  after 
having,  for  half  a  century,  been  deprived  of  manufactures,  you 
have  little  skill,  and  it  would  require  many  years  for  you  to  ac 
quire  it.  Your  foreign  trade  has  disappeared  with  your  manufac 
tures,  and  the  products  of  your  looms  would  have  no  market  but 
your  own.  When  we  invent  a  pattern  we  have  the  whole  world 
for  a  market,  and  after  having  supplied  the  domestic  demand,  we 
can  furnish  of  it  for  foreign  markets  so  cheaply  as  to  set  at  de 
fiance  all  competition.  Further  than  all  this,  we  have,  at  very 
short  intervals,  periods  of  monetary  crisis  that  are  so  severe  as 
to  sweep  away  many  of  our  own  manufacturers,  and  at  those  times 
goods  are  forced  into  all  the  markets  of  the  world,  to  be  sold  at 
uny  price  that  can  be  obtained  for  them.  Look  only  at  the  facts 
of  the  last  few  years.  Six  years  since,  railroad  iron  was  worth 
£12  per  ton.  Three  years  since,  it  could  be  had  for  £4.10,  or 
even  less.  Now  it  is  at  £10>  and  a  year  hence  it  may  be 
either  £12  or  £4 ;  and  whether  it  shall  be  the  one  or  the  other  is 
dependent  altogether  upon  the  movements  of  the  great  Bank 
which  regulates  all  our  affairs.  Under  such  circumstances,  how 
could  your  infant  establishments  hope  to  exist  ?  Be  content.  The 
Celt  has  long  been  '  the  hewer  of  wood  and  drawer  of  water  for 


DOMESTIC   AXD   FOREIGN.  807 

the  Saxon/  and  so  he  must  continue.  We  should  regret  to  see 
yon  all  driven  from  your  native  soil,  because  it  would  deprive  us 
of  our  supply  of  cheap  labour;  but  we  shall  have  in  exchange 
the  great  fact  that  Ireland  will  become  one  vast  grazing-farm,  and 
will  supply  us  with  cheap,  provisions,  and  thus  aid  in  keeping  down 
the  prices  of  all  descriptions  of  food  sent  to  our  markets." 

The  Hindoo,  in  like  manner,  would  be  told  that  his  aid  was 
needed  for  keeping  down  the  price  of  American  and  Egyptian 
cotton,  and  Brazilian  and  Cuban  sugar,  and  that  the  price  of  both 
would  rise  were  he  permitted  to  obtain  machinery  that  would 
enable  him  to  mine  coal  and  iron  ore,  by  aid  of  which  to  obtain 
spindles  and  looms  for  the  conversion  of  his  cotton  into  cloth,  and 
thus  raise  the  value  of  his  labour.  The  Brazilian  would  be  told 
that  it  was  the  policy  of  England  to  have  cheap  sugar,  and  that  the 
more  he  confined  himself  and  his  people — men,  women,  and  chil 
dren — to  the  culture  of  the  cane,  the  lower  would  be  the  prices  of 
the  product  of  the  slaves  of  Cuba  and  the  Mauritius. 

Seeing  that  the  policy  of  England  was  thus  directly  opposed  to 
every  thing  like  association,  or  the  growth -of  towns  and  other 
local  places  of  exchange,  and  that  it  looked  only  to  cheapening 
labour  and  enslaving  the  labourer,  the  questions  would  naturally 
arise  :  Can  we  not  help  ourselves  ?  Is  there  no  mode  of  escaping 
from  this  thraldom  ?  »Must  our  women  always  labour  in  the  field? 
Must  our  children  always  be  deprived  of  schools  ?  Must  we  con 
tinue  for  ever  to  raise  negroes  for  sale  ?  Must  the  slave  trade  last 
for  ever  ?  Must  the  agricultural  communities  of  the  world  be  com 
pelled  for  all  time  to  compete  against  each  other  in  one  very  limited 
market  for  the  sale  of  all  they  have  to  sell,  and  the  purchase  of 
all  they  have  to  buy  ?  Are  there  not  some  nations  in  which  men 
are  becoming  more  free,  and  might  we  not  aid  the  cause  of  freedom 
by  studying  the  course  they  have  pursued  and  are  pursuing? 
Let  us,  then,  inquire  into  the  policy  of  some  of  the  various  peoples 
of  Continental  Europe,  and  see  if  we  cannot  obtain  an  answer  to 
these  questions. 


308  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

HOW   FREEDOM   GROWS   IN    NORTHERN   GERMANY. 

LOCAL  action  has  always,  to  a  considerable  extent,  existed  in 
Germany.  For  a  time,  there  was  a  tendency  to  the  centralization 
of  power  in  the  hands  of  Austria,  'but  the  growth  of  Prussia  at  the 
north  has  produced  counter  attraction,  and  there  is  from  day  to  day 
an  increasing  tendency  toward  decentralization,  local  activity,  and 
freedom. 

It  is  now  but  little  more  than  seventy  years  since  the  Elector 
of  Hesse  sold  large  numbers  of  his  poor  subjects  to  the  government 
of  England  to  aid  it  in  establishing  unlimited  control  over  the 
people  of  this  country.  About  the  same  period,  Frederick  of 
Prussia  had  his  emissaries  everywhere  employed  in  seizing  men 
of  proper  size  for  his  grenadier  regiments — and  so  hot  was  the 
pursuit,  that  it  was  dangerous  for  a  man  of  any  nation,  or  however 
free,  if  of  six  feet  high,  to  place  himself  within  their  reach.  The 
people  were  slaves,  badly  fed,  badly  clothed,  and  badly  lodged, 
and  their  rulers  were  tyrants.  The  language  of  the  higher 
classes  was  French,  German  being  then  regarded  as  coarse  and 
vulgar,  fit  only  for  the  serf.  German  literature  was  then  only 
struggling  into  existence.  Of  the  mechanic  arts,  little  was  known, 
and  the  people  were  almost  exclusively  agricultural,  while  the  ma 
chinery  used  in  agriculture  was  of  the  rudest  kind.  Commerce 
at  home  was  very  small,  and  abroad  it  was  limited  to  the  export 
of  the  rude  products  of  the  field,  to  be  exchanged  for  the  luxuries 
of  London  or  Paris  required  for  the  use  of  the  higher  orders  of 
society. 

Thirty  years  later,  the  slave  trade  furnished  cargoes  to  many, 
if  not  most,  of  the  vessels  that  traded  between  this  country  and 
Germany.  Men,  women,  and  children  were  brought  out  and  sold 
for  terms  of  years,  at  the  close  of  which  they  became  free,  and 
many  of  the  most  respectable  people  in  the  Middle  States  are 
descended  from  "  indented"  German  servants. 


DOMESTIC   AXD   FOREIGN.  309 

The  last  half  century  has,  however,  been  marked  by  the  adoption 
of  measures  tending  to  the  complete  establishment  of  the  mechanic 
arts  throughout  Germany,  and  to  the  growth  of  places  for  the 
performance  of  local  exchanges.  The  change  commenced  during 
the  period  of  the  continental  system ;  but,  at  the  close  of  the  war, 
the  manufacturing  establishments  of  the  country  were,  to  a  great 
extent,  swept  away,  and  the  raw  material  of  cloth  was  again  com 
pelled  to  travel  to  a  distance  in  search  of  the  spindle  and  the 
loom,  the  export  of  which  from  England,  as  well  as  of  colliers 
and  artisans,  was,  as  the  reader  has  seen,  i>rohibited.  But  very 
few  years,  however,  elapsed  before  it  became  evident  that  the 
people  were  becoming  poorer,  and  the  land  becoming  exhausted, 
and  then  it  was  that  were  commenced  the  smaller  Unions  for  the 
purpose  of  bringing  the  loom  to  take  its  natural  place  by  the  side 
of  the  plough  and  the  harrow.  Step  by  step  they  grew  in  size 
and  strength,  until,  in  1835,  only  twenty  years  after  the  battle  of 
Waterloo,  was  formed  the  Zoll-Verein,  or  great  German  Union, 
under  which  the  internal  commerce  was  rendered  almost  entirely 
free,  while  the  external  one  was  subjected  to  certain  restraints, 
having  for  their  object  to  cause  the  artisan  to  come  and  place  him 
self  where  food  and  wool  were  cheap,  in  accordance  with  the 
doctrines  of  Adam  Smith. 

In  1825,  Germany  exported  almost  thirty  millions  of  pounds 
of  raw  wool  to  England,  where  it  was  subjected  to  a  duty  of  twelve 
cents  per  pound  for  the  privilege  of  passing  through  the  machinery 
there  provided  for  its  manufacture  into  cloth.  Since  that  time, 
the  product  has  doubled,  and  yet  not  only  has  the  export  almost 
ceased,  but  much  foreign  wool  is  now  imported  for  the  purpose  of 
mixing  with  that  produced  at  home.  The  effect  of  this  has,  of 
course,  been  to  make  a  large  market  for  both  food  and  wool  that 
would  otherwise  have  been  pressed  on  the  market  of  England,  with 
great  reduction  in  the  price  of  both ;  and  woollen  cloths  are  now  so 
cheaply  produced  in  Germany,  that  they  are  exported  to  almost 
all  parts  of  the  world.  Wool  is  higher  and  cloth  is  lower,  and, 
therefore,  it  is,  as  we  shall  see,  that  the  people  are  now  so  much 
better  clothed. 


310  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

At  the  date  of  the  formation  of  the  Union,  the  total  import  of 
raw  cotton  and  cotton  yarn  was  about  800,000  cwts.,  but  so  rapid 
was  the  extension  of  the  manufacture,  that  in  less  than  six  years 
it  had  doubled,  and  so  cheaply  were  cotton  goods  supplied,  that  a 
largo  export  trade  had  already  arisen.  In  1845,  when  the  Union 
was  but  ten  years  old,  the  import  of  cotton  and  yarn  had  reached  a 
million  of  hundredweights,  and  since  that  time  there  has  been  a 
large  increase.  The  iron  manufacture,  also,  grew  so  rapidly  that 
whereas,  in  1834,  the  consumption  had  been  only  eleven  pounds 
per  head,  in  1847  it  had  risen  to  twenty-Jive  pounds,  having  thus 
more  than  doubled ;  and  with  each  step  in  this  direction,  the  people 
were  obtaining  better  machinery  for  cultivating  the  land  and  for 
converting  its  raw  products  into  manufactured  ones. 

In  no  country  has  there  been  a  more  rapid  increase  in  this  di 
versification  of  employments,  and  increase  in  the  demand  for  labour, 
than  in  Germany  since  the  formation  of  the  Union.  Everywhere 
throughout  the  country  men  are  now  becoming  enabled  to  combine 
the  labours  of  the  workshop  with  those  of  the  field  and  the  garden, 
and  "  the  social  and  economical  results"  of  this  cannot,  says  Mr. 
Kay*— 

"Be  rated  too  highly.  The  interchange  of  garden-labour  with 
manufacturing  employments,  which  is  advantageous  to  the  operative 
who  works  in  his  own  house,  is  a  real  luxury  and  necessity  for  the 
factory  operative,  whose  occupations  are  almost  always  necessarily 
prejudicial  to  health.  After  his  day's  labour  in  the  factories,  he  ex 
periences  a  physical  reinvigoration  from  moderate  labour  in  the  open 
air,  and,  moreover,  he  derives  from  it  some  economical  advantages. 
He  is  enabled  by  this  means  to  cultivate  at  least  part  of  the  vegetables 
which  his  family  require  for  their  consumption,  instead  of  having  to 
purchase  them  in  the  market  at  a  considerable  outlay.  He  can 
sometimes,  also,  keep  a  cow,  which  supplies  his  family  with  milk,  and 
provides  a  healthy  occupation  for  his  wife  and  children  when  they 
leave  the  factory." 

As  a  necessary  consequence  of  this  creation  of  a  domestic  mar 
ket,  the  farmer  has  ceased  to  be  compelled  to  devote  himself 
exclusively  to  the  production  of  wheat,  or  other  articles  of  small 
bulk  and  large  price,  and  can  now  "  have  a  succession  of  crops,'* 
says  Mr.  Howitt — 

*  The  Social  Condition  and  Education  of  the  People  of  England  and  Europe,  i.  256. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  311 

"  Like  a  market-gardener.  They  have  their  carrots,  poppies,  hemp, 
flax,  saintfoin,  lucerne,  rape,  colewort,  cabbage,  rutabaga,  black  tur 
nips,  Swedish  and  white  turnips,  teazles,  Jerusalem  artichokes,  mangel- 
wurzel,  parsnips,  kidney-beans,  field  beans  and  peas,  vetches,  Indian 
corn,  buckwheat,  madder  for  the  manufacturer,  potatoes,  their  great 
crop  of  tobacco,  millet — all  or  the  greater  part  under  the  family  ma 
nagement,  in  their  own  family  allotments.  They  have  had  these  things 
first  to  sow,  many  of  them  to  transplant,  to  hoe,  to  weed,  to  clear  off 
insects,  to  top ;  many  of  them  to  mow  and  gather  in  successive  crops. 
They  have  their  water-meadows — of  which  kind  almost  all  their  mea 
dows  are — to  flood,  to  mow,  and  reflood ;  watercourses  to  reopen  and 
to  make  anew ;  their  early  fruits  to  gather,  to  bring  to  market,  with 
their  green  crops  of  vegetables  ;  their  cattle,  sheep,  calves,  fowls,  (most 
of  them  prisoners,)  and  poultry  to  look  after;  their  vines,  as  they 
shoot  rampantly  in  the  summer  heat,  to  prune,  and  thin  out  the  leaves 
when  they  are  too  thick ;  and  any  one  may  imagine  what  a  scene  of 
incessant  labour  it  is." — Rural  and  Domestic  Lije  in  Germany,  p.  50. 

The  existence  of  a  domestic  market  enables  them,  of  course,  to 
manure  their  land.  "  No  means,"  says  Mr.  Kay — 

"  Are  spared  to  make  the  ground  produce  as  much  as  possible.  Not 
a  square  yard  of  land  is  uncultivated  or  unused.  No  stones  are  left 
mingled  with 'the  soil.  The  ground  is  cleared  of  weeds  and  rubbish, 
and  the  lumps  of  earth  are  broken  up  with  as  much  care  as  in  an 
English  garden.  If  it  is  meadow  land,  it  is  cleaned  of  obnoxious  herbs 
and  weeds.  Only  the  sweet  grasses  which  are  good  for  the  cattle  are 
allowed  to  grow.  All  the  manure  from  the  house,  farm,  and  yard  is 
carefully  collected  and  scientifically  prepared.  The  liquid  manure  is 
then  carried  in  hand-carts  like  our  road-watering  carts  into  the  fields, 
and  is  watered  over  the  meadows  in  equal  proportions.  The  solid 
manures  are  broken  up,  cleared  of  stones  and  rubbish,  and  are  then 
properly -mixed  and  spread  over  the  lands  which  require  them.  No 
room  is  lost  in  hedges  or  ditches,  and  no  breeding-places  are  left  for 
the  vermin  which  in  many  JDarts  of  England  do  so  much  injury  to  the 
farmers'  crops.  The  character  of  the  soil  of  each  district  is  carefully 
examined,  and  a  suitable  rotation  of  crops  is  chosen,  so  as  to  obtain 
the  greatest  possible  return  without  injuring  the  land  ;  and  the  cattle 
are  well  housed,  are  kept  beautifully  clean,  and  are  groomed  and 
tended  like  the  horses  of  our  huntsmen."— Vol.  i.  118. 

The  labours  of  the  field  have  become  productive,  and  there  ha? 
been  excited,  says  Dr.  Shubert — 

"A  singular  and  increasing  interest  in  agriculture  and  in  th< 
breeding  of  cattle ;  and  if  in  some  localities,  on  account  of  peculiai 
circumstances  or  of  a  less  degree  of  intelligence,  certain  branches  of 
the  science  of  agriculture  are  less  developed  than  in  other  localities,  it 
is,  nevertheless,  undeniable  that  an  almost  universal  progress  has 
been  made  in  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  and  in  the  breeding  of  cattle. 
No  one  can  any  longer,  as  was  the  custom  thirty  years  ago,  describe 


312  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

the  Prussian  system  of  agriculture  by  the  single  appellation  of  the 
three-year-course  system ;  no  man  can,  as  formerly,  confine  his  enu 
meration  of  richly-cultivated  districts  to  a  few  localities.  In  the 
present  day,  there  is  no  district  of  Prussia  in  which  intelligence,  per 
severing  energy,  and  an  ungrudged  expenditure  of  capital,  has  not 
immensely  improved  a  considerable  part  of  the  country  for  the  pur- 
Doses  of  agriculture  and  of  the  breeding  of  cattle."* 

Speaking  of  that  portion  of  Germany  which  lies  on  the  Rhine 
and  the  Neckar,  Professor  Rau,  of  Heidelberg,  says  that— 

"  Whoever  travels  hastily  through  this  part  of  the  country  must 
have  been  agreeably  surprised  with  the  luxuriant  vegetation  of  the 
fields,  with  the  orchards  and  vineyards  which  cover  the  hillsides,  with 
the  size  of  the  villages,  with  the  breadth  of  their  streets,  with  the 
beauty  of  their  official  buildings,  with  the  cleanliness  and  stateliness 
of  their  houses,  with  the  good  clothing  in  which  the  people  appear  at 
their  festivities,  and  with  the  universal  proofs  of  a  prosperity  which 
has  been  caused  by  industry  and  skill,  and  which  has  survived  all  the 
political  changes  of  the  times.  *  *  *  The  unwearied  assiduity 
of  the  peasants — who  are  to  be  seen  actively  employed  the  whole  of 
every  year  and  of  every  day,  and  who  are  never  idle,  because  they 
understand  how  to  arrange  their  work,  and  how  to  set  apart  for  every 
time  and  season  its  appropriate  duties — is  as  remarkable  as  their 
eagerness  to  avail  themselves  of  every  circumstance  and  of  every  new 
invention  which  can  aid  them,  and  their  ingenuity  in  improving  their 
resources,  are  praiseworthy.  It  is  easy  to  perceive  that  the  peasant 
of  this  district  really  understands  his  business.  He  can  give  reasons 
for  the  occasional  failures  of  his  operations  ;  he  knows  and  remembers 
clearly  his  pecuniary  resources ;  he  arranges  his  choice  of  fruits  ac 
cording  to  their  prices ;  and  he  makes  his  calculations  by  the  general 
signs  and  tidings  of  the  weather." — Landwirthshaft  der  Rlieinpfalz. 

The  people  of  this  country  "  stand  untutored,"  says  Mr.  Kay, 
"  except  by  experience ;  but,"  he  continues — 

"  Could  the  tourist  hear  these  men  in  their  blouses  and  thick  gaiters 
converse  on  the  subject,  he  would  be  surprised  at  the  mass  of  practical 
knowledge  they  possess,  and  at  the  caution  and  yet  the  keenness  with 
which  they  study  these  advantages.  Of  this  all  may  rest  assured, 
that  from  the  commencentent  of  the  offsets  of  the  Eifel,  where  the 
village  cultivation  assumes  an  individual  and  strictly  local  character, 
good  reason  can  be  given  for  the  manner  in  which  every  inch  of 
ground  is  laid  out,  as  for  every  balm,  root,  or  tree  that  covers  it." — 
Vol.  i.  130. 

The  system  of  agriculture  is  making  rapid  progress,  as  is  always 
the  case  when  the  artisan  is  brought  to  the  side  of  the  husbandman. 
Constant  intercourse  with  each  other  sharpens  the  intellect,  and 

*  Handbuch  der  Allgemeinen  Staatskunde,  vol.  ii.  5,  quoted  by  Kay,  vol.  i.  120. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  313 

men  learn  to  know  the  extent  of  their  powers.  Each  step  up 
ward  is  but  the  preparation  for  a  new  and  greater  one,  and 
therefore  it  is  that  everywhere  among  those  small  farmers,  says 
Mr.  Kay,  "science  is  welcomed."  "  Each/'  he  continues — 

"  Is  so  anxious  to  emulate  and  surpass  his  neighbours,  that  any 
new  invention,  which  benefits  one,  is  eagerly  sought  out  and  adopted 
by  the  others."— Vol.  i.  149. 

The  quantity  of  stock  that  is  fed  is  constantly  and  rapidly  in 
creasing,  and,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  the  increase  in  the 
quantity  of  grain  is  more  rapid  than  in  the  population,  although 
that  of  Prussia  and  Saxony  now  increases  faster  than  that  of  any 
other  nation  of  Europe.* 

The  land  of  Germany  is  much  divided.  A  part  of  this  divi 
sion  was  the  work  of  governments  which  interfered  between  the 
owners  and  the  peasants,  and  gave  to  the  latter  absolute  rights 
over  a  part  of  the  land  they  cultivated,  instead  of  previous  claims 
to  rights  of  so  uncertain  a  kind  as  rendered  the  peasant  a  mere 
slave  to  the  land-owner.  Those  rights,  however,  could  not  have 
been  maintained  had  not  the  policy  of  the  government  tended  to 
promote  the  growth  of  population  and  wealth.  ,  Centralization 
would  have  tended  to  the  reconsolidation  of  the  land,  as  it  has 
done  in  India,  Ireland,  Scotland,  and  England ;  but  decentraliza 
tion  here  gives  value  to  land,  and  aids  in  carrying  out  the  system 
commenced  by  government.  Professor  Keichenspergerf  says — 

"  That  the  price  of  land  which  is  divided  into  small  properties,  in 
the  Prussian  Rhine  provinces,  is  much  higher,  and  has  been  rising 
much  more  rapidly,  than  the  price  of  land  on  the  great  estates.  He 
and  Professor  Rau  both  say  that  this  rise  in  the  price  of  the  small  es 
tates  would  have  ruined  the  more  recent  purchasers,  unless  the  pro 
ductiveness  of  the  small  estates  had  increased  in  at  least  an  equal  pro 
portion  ;  and  as  the  small  proprietors  have  been  gradually  becoming 
more  and  more  prosperous,  notwithstanding  the  increasing  prices  they 
have  paid  for  their  land,  he  argues,  with  apparent  justness,  that  this 

*  Until  recently,  the  increase  of  Great  Britain  has  been  slightly  greater  than 
that  of  Prussia,  the  former  having  grown  at  the  rate  of  1.95  per  cent,  per  annum, 
and  the  latter  at  that  of  1.84;  but  the  rate  of  growth  of  the  former  has  recently 
much  diminished,  and  all  growth  has  now  probably  ceased. 

|  Die  Agrarfrage. 

27 


314  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

would  seem  to  show  that  not  only  the  gross  profits  of  the  small  estates, 
but  the  net  profits  also,  have  been  gradually  increasing,  and  that  the 
net  profits  per  acre  of  land,  when  farmed  by  small  proprietors,  are 
greater  than  the  net  profits  per  acre  of  land  farmed  by  great  proprie 
tors." — Kay,  vol.  i.  116. 

The  admirable  effect  of  the  division  of  land,  which  follows  neces 
sarily  in  the  wake  of  the  growth  of  population  and  wealth,  is  thurt 
described  by  Sismondi : — * 

"Wherever  are  found  peasant  proprietors,  are  also  found  that 
ease,  that  security,  that  independence,  and  that  confidence  in  the 
future,  which  insure  at  the  same  time  happiness  and  virtue.  The 
peasant  who,  with  his  family,  does  all  the  work  on  his  little  inherit 
ance,  who  neither  pays  rent  to  any  one  above  him,  nor  wages  to  any 
one  below  him,  who  regulates  his  production  by  his  consumption,  who 
eats  his  own  corn,  drinks  his  own  wine,  and  is  clothed  with  his  own 
flax  and  wool,  cares  little  about  knowing  the  price  of  the  market ;  for 
he  has  little  to  sell  and  little  to  buy,  and  is  never  ruined  by  the  revo 
lutions  of  commerce.  Far  from  fearing  for  the  future,  it  is  embellished 
by  his  hopes ;  for  he  puts  out  to  profit,  for  his  children  or  for  ages  to 
come,  every  instant  which  is  not  required  by  the  labour  of  the  year. 
Only  a  few  moments,  stolen  from  otherwise  lost  time,  are  required  to 
put  into  the  ground  the  nut  which  in  a  hundred  years  will  become  a 
large  tree ;  to  hollow  out  the  aqueduct  which  will  drain  his  field  for 
ever  ;  to  form  the  conduit  which  will  bring  him  a  spring  of  water  ;  to 
improve,  by  many  little  labours  and  attentions  bestowed  in  spare  mo 
ments,  all  the  kinds  of  animals  and  vegetables  by  which  he  is  sur 
rounded.  This  little  patrimony  is  a  true  savings-bank,  always  ready 
to  receive  his  little  profits,  and  usefully  to  employ  his  leisure  moments. 
The  ever-acting  powers  of  nature  make  his  labours  fruitful,  and  return 
to  him  a  hundredfold.  The  peasant  has  a  strong  sense  of  the  happi 
ness  attached  to  the  condition  of  proprietor.  Thus  he  is  always  eager 
to  purchase  land  at  any  price.  He  pays  for  it  more  than  it  is  worth ; 
but  what  reason  he  has  to  esteem  at  a  high  price  the  advantage  of 
thenceforward  always  employing  his  labour  advantageously,  without 
being  obliged  to  offer  it  cheap,  and  of  always  finding  his  bread  when 
he  wants  it,  without  being  obliged  to  buy  it  dear  V — Kay,  vol.  i.  153. 

The  German  people  borrow  from  the  earth,  and  they  pay  their 
debts ;  and  this  they  are  enabled  to  do  because  the  market  is  every 
where  near,  and  becoming  nearer  every  day,  as,  with  the  increase 
of  population  and  wealth,  men  are  enabled  to  obtain  better  ma 
chinery  of  conversion  and  transportation.  They  are,  therefore, 
says  Mr.  Kay — 

"  Gradually  acquiring  capital,  and  their  great  ambition  is  to  have 

*  Etudes  sur  1'Economie  Politique. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  315 

land  of  their  own.  They  eagerly  seize  every  opportunity  of  purchas 
ing  a  small  form  ;  and  the  price'is  so  raised  by  the  competition,  that 
land  pays  little  more  than  two  per  cent,  interest  for  the  purchase- 
money.  Large  properties  gradually  disappear,  and  are  divided  into 
small  portions,  which  sell  at  a  high  rate.  But  the  wealth  and  industry 
of  the  population  is  continually  increasing,  being  rather  through  the 
masses,  than  accumulated  in  individuals." — Vol.  i.  183. 

The  disappearance  of  large  properties  in  Germany  proceeds,  pari 
passu,  with  the  disappearance  of  small  ones  in  England.  If  the 
reader  desire  to  know  the  views  of  Adam  Smith  as  to  the  relative 
advantages  of  the  two  systems,  he  may  turn  to  the  description, 
from  his  pen,  of  the  feelings  of  the  small  proprietor,  given  in  a 
former  chapter;*  after  which  he  may  profit  by  reading  the  follow 
ing  remarks  of  Mr.  Kay,  prompted  by  his  observation  of  the 
course  of  things  in  Germany  : — 

"  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  five  acres,  the  property  of  an  intel 
ligent  peasant,  who  farms  it  himself,  in  a  country  where  the  peasants 
have  learned  to  farm,  will  always  produce  much  more  per  acre  than 
an  equal  number  of  acres  will  do  when  farmed  by  a  mere  leasehold 
tenant.  In  the  case  of  the  peasant  proprietor,  the  increased  activity 
and  energy  of  the  farmer,  and  the  deep  interest  he  feels  in  the  im 
provement  of  his  land,  which  are  always  caused  by  the  fact  of  owner 
ship,  more  than  compensate  the  advantage  arising  from  the  fact  that 
the  capital  required  to  work  the  large  farm  is  less  in  proportion  to  the 
quantity  of  land  cultivated  than  the  capital  required  to  work  the  small 
farm.  In  the  cases  of  a  large  farm  and  of  a  small  farm,  the  occu 
piers  of  which  are  both  tenants  of  another  person,  and  not  owners 
themselves,  it  may  be  true  that  the  produce  of  the  large  farm  will  be 
greater  in  proportion  to  the  capital  employed  in  cultivation  than  that 
uf  the  small  farm ;  and  that,  therefore,  the  farming  of  the  larger  farm 
will  be  the  most  economical,  and  will  render  the  largest  rent  to  the 
landlord."— Vol.  i.  113. 

Land  is  constantly  changing  hands,  and  "people  of  all  classes," 
says  Mr.  Kay — 

"Are  able  to  become  proprietors.  Shopkeepers  and  labourers  of  the 
towns  purchase  gardens  outside  the  towns,  where  they  and  their  fami 
lies  work  in  the  fine  evenings,  in  raising  vegetables  and  fruit  for  the 
use  of  their  households  ;  shopkeepers,  who  have  laid  by  a  little  compe 
tence,  purchase  farms,  to  which  they  and  their  families  retire  from  the 
toil  and  disquiet  of  a  town  life ;  farmers  purchase  the  farms  they  used 
formerly  to  rent  of  great  Jand-owners ;  while  most  of  the  peasants  of 

*  Page  51,  ante. 


316 

these  countries  have  purchased  and  live  upon  farms  of  their  own,  or 
are  now  economizing  and  laying  by  all  that  they  can  possibly  spare 
from  their  earnings,  in  order  therewith  as  soon  as  possible  to  purchase 
a  farm  or  a  garden." — Vol.  i.  58. 

We  have  here  the  strongest  inducements  to  exertion  and  econo 
my.  Every  man  seeks  to  have  a  little  farm,  or  a  garden,  of  his 
own,  and  all  have,  says  Mr.  Kay — 

"  The  consciousness  that  they  have  their  fate  in  their  own  hands  ; 
that  their  station  in  life  depends  upon  their  own  exertions  ;  that  they 
can  rise  in  the  world,  if  they  will  only  be  patient  and  laborious  enough ; 
that  they  can  gain  an  independent  position  by  industry  and  economy ; 
that  they  are  not  cut  off  by  an  insurmountable  barrier  from  the  next 
step  in  the  social  scale  ;  that  it  is  possible  to  purchase  a  house  and 
farm  of  their  own ;  and  that  the  more  industrious  and  prudent  they 
are,  the  better  will  be  the  position  of  their  families :  [and  this  conscious 
ness]  gives  the  labourers  of  those  countries,  where  the  land  is  not  tied 
up  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  an  elasticity  of  feeling,  a  hopefulness,  an 
energy,  a  pleasure  in  economy  and  labour,  a  distaste  for  expenditure 
upon  gross  sensual  enjoyments, — which  would  only  diminish  the  gra 
dually  increasing  store, — and  an  independence  of  character,  which  the 
dependent  and  helpless  labourers  of  the  other  country  can  never  expe 
rience.  In  short,  the  life  of  a  peasant  in  those  countries  where  the 
land  is  not  kept  from  subdividing  by  the  laws  is  one  of  the  highest 
moral  education.  His  unfettered  position  stimulates  him  to  better  his 
condition,  to  economize,  to  be  industrious,  to  husband  his  powers,  to 
acquire  moral  habits,  to  use  foresight,  to  gain  knowledge  about  agri 
culture,  and  to  give  his  children  a  good  education,  so  that  they  may 
improve  the  patrimony  and  social  position  he  will  bequeath  to  them." 
—Vol.  i.  200. 

"We  have  here  the  stimulus  of  hope  of  improvement — a  state  of 
things  widely  different  from  that  described  in  a  former  chapter  in 
relation  to  England,  where,  says  the  Times,  "once  a  peasant,  a 
man  must  remain  a  peasant  for  ever."  Such  is  the  difference  be 
tween  the  one  system,  that  looks  to  centralizing  in  the  hands  of  a 
few  proprietors  of  machinery  power  over  the  lives  and  fortunes  of 
all  the  cultivators  of  the  world,  and  the  other,  that  looks  to  giving 
to  all  those  cultivators  power  over  themselves.  The  first  is  the 
system  of  slavery,  and  the  last  that  of  freedom. 

Hope  is  the  mother  of  industry,  and  industry  in  her  turn  begets 
temperance.  "  In  the  German  and  Swiss  towns,"  says  Mr.  Kay — 

"  There  are  no  places  to  be  compared  to  those  sources  of  the  demo 
ralization  of  our  town  poor — the  gin-palaces.  There  is  very  little 


DOMESTIC   AXD   FOREIGN.  317 

drunkenness  in  either  towns  or  villages,  while  the  absence  of  the  * 
gin-palaces  removes  from  the  young  the  strong  causes   of  degrada 
tion  .  and  corruption  which  exist  at  the  doors  of  the  English  homes, 
affording  scenes  and  temptations  which  cannot  but  inflict  upon  our 
labouring  classes  moral  injury  which  they  would  not  otherwise  suffer." 

*  *     *      "  The  total  absence  of  intemperance  and  drunkenness  at 
these,  and  indeed  at  all  other  fetes  in  Germany,  is  very  singular.     I 
never  saw  a  drunken  man  either  in  Prussia  or  Saxony,  and  I  was  as 
sured  by  every  one  that  such  a  sight  was  rare.     I  believe  the  temper 
ance  of  the  poor  to  be  owing  to  the  civilizing  effects  of  their  .education 
in  the  schools  and  in  the  army,  to  the  saving  and  careful  habits  which 
the  possibility  of  purchasing  land,  and  the  longing  to  purchase  it,  nou 
rish  in  their  minds,  and  to  their  having  higher  and  more  pleasurable 
amusements  than  the  alehouse  and  hard  drinking." — Vol.  i.  247,  201. 

As  a  natural  consequence  of  this,  pauperism  is  rare,  as  will  be 
seen  by  the  following  extract  from  a  report  of  the  Prussian  Minis 
ter  of  Statistics,  given  by  Mr.  Kay  : — 

"  As  our  Prussian  agriculture  raises  so  much  more  meat  and  bread 
on  the  same  extent  of  territory  than  it  used  to  do,  it  follows  that  agri 
culture  must  have  been  greatly  increased  both  in  science  and  industry. 
There  are  other  facts  which  confirm  the  truth  of  this  conclusion.  The 
division  of  estates  has,  since  1831,  proceeded  more  and  more  through 
out  the  country.  There  are  now  many  more  small  independent  pro-  • 
prietors  than  formerly.  Yet,  however  many  complaints  of  pauperism 
are  heard  among  the  dependent  labourers,  WE  NEVER  HEARD  IT  COM 
PLAINED  THAT  PAUPERISM  IS  INCREASING  AMONG  THE  PEASANT  PROPRIE 
TORS.  Nor  do  we  hear  that  the  estates  of  the  peasants  in  the  eastern  pro 
vinces  are  becoming  too  small,  or  that  the  system  of  freedom  of  disposition 
leads  to  too  great  a  division  of  the  father's  land  among  the  children." 

*  *     *     "It  is  an  almost  universally  acknowledged  fact  that  the  gross 
produce  of  the  land,  in  grain,  potatoes,  and  cattle,  is  increased  when  the 
land  is  cultivated  by  those  who  own  small  portions  of  it;  and  if  this  had 
not  been  the  case,  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  raise  as  much  of 
the  necessary  articles  of  food  as  has  been  wanted  for  the  increasing 
population.     Even  on  the  larger  estates,  the  improvement  in  the  sys 
tem  of  agriculture  is  too  manifest  to  admit  of  any  doubt 

Industry,  and  capital,  and  labour  are  expended  upon  the  soil.     It  is 
rendered  productive  by  means  of  manuring  and  careful  tillage.     The 
amount  of  the  produce  is  increased.    ...     The  prices  of  the  estates, 
on  account  of  their  increased  productiveness,  have  increased.      The 
great  commons,  many  acres  of  which  used  to  lie  wholly  uncultivated, 
are  disappearing,  and  are  being  turned  into  meadows  and  fields.    The 
cultivation  of  potatoes  has  increased  very  considerably.    Greater  plots 
of  lands  are  now  devoted  to  the  cultivation  of  potatoes  than  ever  used 
to  be.     .     .     .     The  old  system  of  the  three-field  system  of  agriculture, 
according  to  which  one-third  of  the  field  used  to  be  left  always  fallow, 
in  order  to  recruit  the  land,  is  now  scarcely  ever  to  be  met  with.     .     . 
With  respect  to  the  cattle,  the  farmers  now  labour  to  improve  the 


318  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

breed.  Sheep-breeding  is  rationally  and  scientifically  pursued  cm  the 
great  estates.  ...  A  remarkable  activity  in  agricultural  pursuits 
has  been  raised ;  and,  as  all  attempts  to  improve  agriculture  are  en 
couraged  and  assisted  by  the  present  government,  agricultural  colleges 
are  founded,  agricultural  associations  of  scientific  farmers  meet  in  all 
provinces  to  suggest  improvements  to  aid  in  carrying  out  experiments, 
and  even  the  peasant  proprietors  form  such  associations  among  them 
selves,  and  establish  model  farms  and  institutions  for  themselves." — 
Vol.  i.  266. 

The  English  system,  which  looks  to  the  consolidation  of  land 
and  the  aggrandizement  of  the  large  capitalist,  tends,  on  the  con 
trary;  to  deprive  the  labourer 

"  Of  every  worldly  inducement  to  practise  self-denial,  prudence,  and 
economy ;  it  deprives  him  of  every  hope  of  rising  in  the  world ;  it 
makes  him  totally  careless  about  self-improvement,  about  the  institu 
tions  of  his  country,  and  about  the  security  of  property  ;  it  undermines 
all  his  independence  of  character ;  it  makes  him  dependent  on  the 
workhouse,  or  on  the  charity  he  can  obtain  by  begging  at  the  hall ; 
and  it  renders  him  the  fawning  follower  of  the  all-powerful  land 
owner."— Vol.  i.  290. 

The  change  that  has  taken  place  in  the  consumption  of  clothing 
is  thus  shown  : — 

Per  head  in  1805.  In  1842. 

Ells  of  cloth f  ll 

"      linen 4  5 

"      woollen  stuffs....   f  13 

"      silks i  | 

"  The  Sunday  suit  of  the  peasants,"  says  Mr.  Kay — 

"  In  Germany,  Switzerland,  and  Holland  rivals  that  of  the  middle 
classes.  A  stranger  taken  into  the  rooms  where  the  village  dances 
are  held,  and  where  the  young  men  and  young  women  are  dressed  in 
their  best  clothes,  would  often  be  unable  to  tell  what  class  of  people 
were  around  him."  *  *  *  "  It  is  very  curious  and  interesting,  at 
the  provincial  fairs,  to  see  not  only  what  a  total  absence  there  is  of 
any  thing  like  the  rags  and  filth  of  pauperism,  but  also  what  evidence 
of  comfort  and  prosperity  there  is  in  the  clean  and  comfortable  attire 
of  the  women."— Vol.  i.  225,  227. 

In  further  evidence  of  the  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the 
female  sex,  he  tells  us  that 

"  An  Englishman,  taken  to  the  markets,  fairs,  and  village  festivals 
of  these  countries,  would  scarcely  credit  his  eyes  were  he  to  see  the 
peasant-girls  who  meet  there  to  join  in  the  festivities ;  they  are  so 


DOMESTIC    AXD    FOREIGN.  319 

much  more  lady-like  in  their  appearance,  in  their  manners,  and  in 
their  dress  than  those  of  our  country  parishes." — Vol.  i.  31. 

The  contrast  between  the  education  of  the  children  of  the  poor 
in  Germany  and  England  is  thus  shown  : — 

"  I  advise  my  readers  to  spend  a  few  hours  in  any  of  our  back  streets 
and  alleys,  those  nurseries  of  vice  and  feeders  of  the  jails,  and  to  as 
sure  himself  that,  children  of  the  same  class  as  those  he  will  see  in  [these] 
haunts — dirty,  rude,  boisterous,  playing  in  the  mud  with  uncombed 
hair,  filthy  and  torn  garments,  and  skin  that  looks  as  if  it  had  not 
been  washed  for  months — are  always,  throughout  Germany,  Switzer 
land,  Denmark,  Holland,  and  a  great  part  of  France,  either  in  school 
or  in  the  school  play-ground,  clean,  well-dressed,  polite  and  civil  in 
their  manners,  and  healthy,  intelligent,  and  happy  in  their  appear 
ance.  It  is' this  difference  in  the  early  life  of  the  poor  of  the  towns  of 
these  countries  which  explains  the  astonishing  improvement  which  has 
taken  place  in  the  state  of  the  back  streets  and  alleys  of  many  of  their 
towns.  The  majority  of  their  town  poor  are  growing  up  with  tastes 
which  render  them  unfit  to  endure  such  degradation  as  the  filth  and 
misery  of  our  town  pauperism." — Vol.  i.  198. 

As  a  natural  consequence,  there  is  that  tendency  toward  equality 
which  everywhere  else  is  attendant  #n  real  freedom.  "  The  differ 
ence/'  says  Mr.  Kay — 

"  Between  the  condition  of  the  juvenile  population  of  these  countries 
and  of  our  own  may  be  imagined,  when  I  inform  my  readers  that  many 
of  the  boys  and  girls  of  the  higher  classes  of  society  in  these  countries 
are  educated  at  the  same  desks  with  the  boys  and  girls  of  the  poorest 
of  the  people,  and  that  children  comparable  with  the  class  which  at 
tends  our  '  ragged  schools'  are  scarcely  ever  to  be  found.  How  impos 
sible  it  would  be  to  induce  our  gentry  to  let  their  children  be  educated 
with  such  children  as  frequent  the  '  ragged  schools/  I  need  not  remind 
my  readers."— P.  101. 

This  tendency  to  equality  is  further  shown  in  the  following 
passage : — 

"  The  manners  ot  the  peasants  in  Germany  and  Switzerland  form, 
as  I  have  already  said,  a  very  singular  contrast  to  the  manners  of  our 
peasants.  They  are  polite,  but  independent.  The  manner  of  saluta 
tion  encourages  this  feeling.  If  a  German  gentleman  addresses  a  pea 
sant,  he  raises  his  hat  before  the  poor  man,  as  we  do  before  ladies. 
The  peasant  replies  by  a  polite  '  Pray  be  covered,  sir/  and  then,  in 
good  German,  answers  the  questions  put  to  him." — P.  159. 

With  growing  tendency  to  equality  of  fortune,  as  the  people 
pass  from  slavery  toward  freedom,  there  is  less  of  ostentatious  dis- 


320  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

play,  and  less  necessity  for  that  slavish  devotion  to  labour  remarked 
in  England.     "  All  classes,"  says  Mr.  Kay — 

"  In  Germany,  Switzerland,  France,  and  Holland  are  therefore  satis 
fied  with  less  income  than  the  corresponding  classes  in  England. 
They,  therefore,  devote  less  time  to  labour,  and  more  time  to  healthy 
ani  improving  recreation.  The  style  of  living  among  the  mercantile 
classes  of  these  countries  is  much  simpler  than  in  England,  but  their 
enjoyment  of  life  is  much  greater." — Vol.  i.  303. 

As  a  consequence  of  this,  the  amusements  of  their  leisure  hours 
are  of  a  more  improving  character,  as  is  here  seen  : — 

"  The  amusements  of  the  peasants  and  operatives  in  the  greater  part 
of  Germany,  Switzerland,  and  Holland,  where  they  are  well  educated, 
and  where  they  are  generally  proprietors  of  farms  or  gardens,  are  of  a 
much  higher  and  of  a  much  more  healthy  character  than  those  of  the 
most  prosperous  of  similar  classes  in  England.  Indeed,  it  may  be 
safely  affirmed  that  the  amusements  of  the  poor  in  Germany  are  of 
a  higher  character  than  the  amusements  of  the  lower  part  of  the 
middle  classes  in  England.  This  may  at  first  seem  a  rather  bold  as 
sertion  ;  but  it  will  not  be  thought  so,  when  I  have  shown  what  their 
amusements  are. 

"  The  gardens,  which  belong  to  the  town  labourers  and  small  shop 
keepers,  afford  their  proprietors  the  healthiest  possible  kind  of  recrea 
tion  after  the  labours  of  the  day.  But,  independently  of  this,  the 
mere  amusements  of  the  poor  of  these  countries  prove  the  civilization, 
the  comfort,  and  the  prosperity  of  their  social  state."  *  #  *  * 
"  There  are,  perhaps,  no  peasantry  in  the  world  who  have  so  much 
healthy  recreation  and  amusement  as  the  peasants  of  Germany,  and 
especially  as  those  of  Prussia  and  Saxony.  In  the  suburbs  of  all  the 
towns  of  Prussia  and  Saxony  regular  garden  concerts  and  promenades 
are  given.  An  admittance  fee  of  from  one  penny  to  sixpence  admits 
any  one  to  these  amusements."  *  *  *  "  I  went  constantly  to  these 
garden-concerts.  I  rejoiced  to  see  that  it  was  possible  for  the  richest 
and  the  poorest  of  the  people  to  find  a  common  meeting  ground ;  that 
the  poor  did  not  live  for  labour  only ;  and  that  the  schools  had  taught 
the  poor  to  find  pleasure  in  such  improving  and  civilizing  pleasures. 
I  saw  daily  proofs  at  these  meetings  of  the  excellent  effects  of  the  social 
system  of  Germany.  I  learned  there  how  high  a  civilization  the  poorer 
classes  of  a  nation  are  capable  of  attaining  under  a  well-arranged  sys 
tem  of  those  laws  which  affect  the  social  condition  of  a  people.  I  found 
proofs  at  these  meetings  of  the  truth  of  that  which  I  am  anxious  to  teach 
my  countrymen,  that  the  poorer  classes  of  Germany  are  much  less  pau 
perized,  much  more  civilized,  and  much  happier  than  our  own  pea 
santry."  *  *  *  "  The  dancing  itself,  even  in  those  tents  frequented 
by  the  poorest  peasants,  is  quite  as  good,  and  is  conducted  with  quite 
as  much  decorum,  as  that  of  the  first  ballrooms  of  London.  The  polka, 
the  waltz,  and  several  dances  not  known  in  England,  are  danced  by 
the  German  peasants  with  great  elegance.  They  dance  quicker  than 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  321 

we  do ;  and,  from  the  training  in  music  which  they  receive  from  their 
childhood,  and  for  many  years  of  their  lives,  the  poorest  peasants 
dance  in  much  better  time  than  English  people  generally  do." — Vol.  i. 
235,  237,  240,  244. 

How  strikingly  does  the  following  view  of  the  state  of  education 
contrast  with  that  given  in  a  former  chapter  in  relation  to  the 
education  of  the  poor  of  England  ! — 

"  Four  years  ago  the  Prussian  government  made  a  general  inquiry 
throughout  the  kingdom,  to  discover  how  far  the  school  education  of 
the  people  had  been  extended ;  and  it  was  then  ascertained  that,  out 
of  all  the  young  men  in  the  kingdom  who  had  attained  the  age  of 
twenty-one  years,  only  two  in  every  hundred  were  unable  to  read.  This 
fact  was  communicated  to  me  by  the  Inspector-General  of  the  kingdom. 

"  The  poor  of  these  countries  read  a  great  deal  more  than  even  those 
of  our  own  country  who  are  able  to  read.  It  is  a  general  custom  in 
Germany  and  Switzerland  for  four  or  five  families  of  labourers  to  club 
together,  and  to  subscribe  among  themselves  for  one  or  two  of  the 
newspapers  which  come  out  once  or  twice  a  week.  These  papers  are 
passed  from  family  to  family,  or  are  interchanged."  *  *  *  "I 
remember  one  day,  when  walking  near  Berlin  in  the  company  of 
Herr  Ilintz,  a  professor  in  Dr.  Diesterweg's  Normal  College,  and  of 
another  teacher,  we  saw  a  poor  woman  cutting  up  in  the  road  logs  of 
wood  for  winter  use.  My  companions  pointed  her  out  to  me,  and  said, 
'  Perhaps  you  will  scarcely  believe  it,  but  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Ber 
lin  poor  women,  like  that  one,  read  translations  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's 
novels,  and  of  many  of  the  interesting  works  of  your  language,  besides 
those  of  the  principal  writers  of  Germany/  This  account  was  after- 
ward  confirmed  by  the  testimony  of  several  other  persons. 

"  Often  and  often  have  I  seen  the  poor  cab-drivers  of  Berlin,  while 
waiting  for  a  fare,  amusing  themselves  by  reading  German  books, 
which  they  had  brought  with  them  in  the  morning  expressly  for  the 
purpose  of  supplying  amusement  and  occupation  for  their  leisure 
hours. 

In  many  parts  of  these  countries,  the  peasants  and  the  workmen  of 
the  towns  attend  regular  weekly  lectures  or  weekly  classes,  where 
they  practise  singing  or  chanting,  or  learn  mechanical  drawing,  his 
tory,  or  science. 

"  As  will  be  seen  afterward,  women  as  well  as  men,  girls  as  well  as 
boys,  enjoy  in  these  countries  the  same  advantages,  and  go  through 
the  same  school  education.  The  women  of  the  poorer  classes  of  these 
countries,  in  point  of  intelligence  and  knowledge,  are  almost  equal  to 
the  men."— P.  63,  65. 

These  facts  would  seem  fully  to  warrant  the  author  in  his  ex 
pression  of  the  belief  that 

"  The  moral,  intellectual,  and  social  condition  of  the  peasants  and 
operatives  of  those  parts  of  Germany,  Holland,  Switzerland,  and  Franco 


322  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

where  the  poor  have  been  educated,  where  the  land  has  been  released 
from  the  feudal  laws,  and  where  the  peasants  have  been  enabled  to 
acquire,  is  very  much  higher,  happier,  and  more  satisfactory  than  that 
of  the  peasants  and  operatives  of  England  ;  and  that  while  these  latter, 
are  struggling  in  the  deepest  ignorance,  pauperism,  and  moral  degra 
dation,  the  former  are  steadily  and  progressively  attaining  a  condition, 
both  socially  and  politically  considered,  of  a  higher,  happier,  and  more 
hopeful  character/' — Vol.  i.  7. 

The  extensive  possession  of  property  produces  here,  as  every 
where,  respect  for  the  rights  of  property.  "In  the  neighbourhood 
of  towns,"  says  Mr.  Kay — 

"  The-  land  is  scarcely  any  more  enclosed,  except  in  the  case  of  the 
small  gardens  which  surround  the  houses,  than  in  the  more  rural  dis 
tricts.  Yet  this  right  is  seldom  abused.  The  condition  of  the  lands  near 
a  German,  or  Swiss,  or  Dutch  town  is  as  orderly,  as  neat,  and  as  un 
disturbed  by  trespassers  as  in  the  most  secluded  and  most  strictly 
preserved  of  our  rural  districts.  All  the  poor  have  friends  or  relations 
who  are  themselves  proprietors.  Every  man,  however  poor,  feels  that 
he  himself  may,  some  day  or  other,  become  a  proprietor.  All  are,  con 
sequently,  immediately  interested  in  the  preservation  of  property,  and 
in  watching  over  the  rights  and  interests  of  their  neighbours/' — P.  249. 

How  strongly  the  same  cause  tends  to  the  maintenance  of 
public  order,  may  be  seen  on  a  perusal  of  the  following  pas 
sages  : — 

"  Every  peasant  who  possesses  one  of  these  estates  becomes  inte 
rested  in  the  maintenance  of  public  order,  in  the  tranquillity  of  the 
country,  in  the  suppression  of  crimes,  in  the  fostering  of  industry 
among  his  own  children,  and  in  the  promotion  of  their  intelligence. 
A  class  of  peasant  proprietors  forms  the  strongest  of  all  conservative 
classes."  *  *  *  "  Throughout  all  the  excitement  of  the  revolutions 
of  1848,  the  peasant  proprietors  of  France,  Germany,  Holland,  and 
Switzerland  were  almost  universally  found  upon  the  side  of  order,  and 
opposed  to  revolutionary  excesses.  It  was  only  in  the  provinces  where 
the  land  was  divided  among  the  nobles,  and  where  the  peasants  were 
only  serfs,  as  in  the  Polish  provinces,  Bohemia,  Austria,  and  some 
parts  of  South  Germany,  that  they  showed  themselves  rebellious.  In 
Prussia  they  sent  deputation  after  deputation  to  Frederic  William,  to 
assure  him  of  their  support ;  in  one  province  the  peasant  proprietors 
elected  his  brother  as  their  representative  ;  and  in  others  they  declared, 
by  petition  after  petition  forwarded  to  the  chamber,  and  by  the  results 
of  the  elections,  how  strongly  they  were  opposed  to  the  anarchical  party 
in  Berlin ."— Vol.  i.  33,  273. 

It  is  where  land  acquires  value  that  men  become  free,  and  the 
more  rapid  the  growth  of  value  in  land,  the  more  rapid  has  ever 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  323 

been  the  growth  of  freedom.  To  enable  it  to  acquire  value,  the 
artisan  and  the  ploughman  must  take  their  places  by  the  side  of 
each  other ;  and  the  greater  the  tendency  to  this,  the  more  rapid 
will  be  the  progress  of  man  toward  moral,  intellectual,  and  politi 
cal  elevation.  It  is  in  this  direction  that  all  the  policy  of  Ger 
many  now  tends,  whereas  that  of  England  tends  toward  destroying 
everywhere  the  value  of  labour  and  land,  and  everywhere  impair 
ing  the  condition  of  man.  The  one  system  tends  to  the  establish 
ment  everywhere  of  mills,  furnaces,  and  towns,  places  of  exchange, 
in  accordance  with  the  view  of  Dr.  Smith,  who  tells  us  that  "  had 
human  institutions  never  disturbed  the  natural  course  of  things, 
the  progressive  wealth  and  increase  of  the  towns  would,  in  every 
political  society,  be  consequential  and  in  proportion  to  the  improve 
ment  and  cultivation  of  the  territory  and  country."  The  other 
tends  toward  building  up  London  and  Liverpool,  Manchester  and 
Birmingham,  at  the  cost  of  enormous  taxation  imposed  upon  all  the 
farmers  and  planters  of  the  world ;  and  its  effects  in  remote  parts 
of  the  United  Kingdom  itself,  compared  with  those  observed  in 
Germany,  are  thus  described  : — 

"  If  any  one  has  travelled  in  the  mountainous  parts  of  Scotland  and 
Wales,  where  the  farmers  are  only  under-lessees  of  great  landlords, 
without  security  of  tenure,  and  liable  to  be  turned  out  of  possession 
with  half  a  year's  notice,  and  where  the  peasants  are  only  labourers, 
without  any  land  of  their  own,  and  generally  without  even  the  use  of 
a  garden  ;  if  he  has  travelled  in  the  mountainous  parts  of  Switzerland, 
Saxony,  and  the  hilly  parts  of  the  Prussian  Rhine  provinces,  where 
most  of  the  farmers  and  peasants  possess,  or  can  by  economy  and  in 
dustry  obtain,  land  of  their  own  ;  and  if  he  has  paid  any  serious  atten 
tion  to  the  condition  of  the  farms,  peasants,  and  children  of  these 
several  countries,  he  cannot  fail  to  have  observed  the  astonishing 
superiority  of  the  condition  of  the  peasants,  children,  and  farms  iu 
the  last-mentioned  countries. 

"  The  miserable  cultivation,  the  undrained  and  rush-covered  valleys, 
the  great  number  of  sides  of  hills,  terraces  on  the  rocks,  sides  of  streams, 
and  other  places  capable  of  the  richest  cultivation,  but  wholly  disused, 
even  for  game  preserves  ;  the  vast  tracts  of  the  richest  lands  lying  in 
moors,  and  bogs,  .and  swamps,  and  used  only  for  the  breeding-places 
of  game,  and  deer,  and  vermin,  while  the  poor  peasants  are  starving 
beside  them ;  the  miserable  huts  of  cottages,  with  their  one  story, 
their  two  low  rooms,  their  wretched  and  undrained  floors,  and  their 
dilapidated  roofs  ;  and  the  crowds  of  miserable,  half-clad,  ragged,  dirty, 
uncombed,  and  unwashed  children,  never  blessed  •with  any  education, 


324  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

never  trained  in  cleanliness  or  morality,  and  never  taught  any  pure 
religion,  are  as  astounding  on  the  one  hand  as  the  happy  condition  of 
the  peasants  in  the  Protestant  cantons  of  Switzerland,  in  the  Tyrol,  in 
Saxony,  and  in  the  mountainous  parts  of  the  Prussian  Rhine  provinces, 
is  pleasing  upon  the  other — where  every  plot  of  land  that  can  bear  any 
thing  is  brought  into  the  most  beautiful  state  of  cultivation ;  where  the 
valleys  are  richly  and  scientifically  farmed ;  where  the  manures  are 
collected  with  the  greatest  care  ;  where  the  houses  are  generally  large, 
roomy,  well-built,  and  in  excellent  repair,  and  are  improving  every 
day ;  where  the  children  are  beautifully  clean,  comfortably  dressed, 
and  attending  excellent  scliools ;  and  where  the  condition  of  the  peo 
ple  is  one  of  hope,  industry,  and  progress." — Vol.  i.  140. 

The  artisan  has  ever  been  the  ally  of  the  farmer  in  his  contests 
with  those  who  sought  to  tax  him,  let  the  form  of  taxation  be 
what  it  might.  The  tendency  of  the  British  system  is  everywhere 
toward  separating  the  two,  and  using  each  to  crush  the  other. 
Hence  it  is  that  in  all  the  countries  subject  to  the  system  there  is 
an  abjectness  of  spirit  not  to  be  found  in  other  parts  of  the  world. 
The  vices  charged  by  the  English  journals  on  the  people  of  Ire 
land  are  those  of  slavery — falsehood  and  dissimulation.  The  Hin 
doo  of  Bengal  is  a  mean  and  crouching  animal,  compared  with  the 
free  people  of  the  upper  country  who  have  remained  under  their 
native  princes.  Throughout  England  there  is  a  deference  to  rank, 
a  servility,  a  toadyism,  entirely  inconsistent  with  progress  in  civil 
ization.*  The  English  labourer  is,  says  Mr.  Howitt — f 

"  So  cut  off  from  the  idea  of  property,  that  he  comes  habitually  to 
look  upon  it  as  a  thing  from  which  he  is  warned  by  the  laws  of  the 
great  proprietors,  and  becomes  in  consequence  spiritless,  purposeless." 

Compare  with  this  the  following  description  of  a  German  bauer, 
from  the  same  authority  : — 

"  The  German  bauer,  on  the  contrary,  looks  on  the  country  as  made 
for  him  and  his  fellow-men.  He  feels  himself  a  man  ;  he  has  a  stake 
in  the  country  as  good  as  that  of  the  bulk  of  his  neighbours ;  no  man 

*  In  no  other  country  than  England  would  the  editor  of  a  daily  journal  inflict 
upon  his  readers  throughout  the  kingdom  whole  columns  occupied  with  the  names 
of  persons  present  at  a  private  entertainment,  and  with  the  dresses  of  the  ladies. 
"Where  centralization  has  reached  a  height  like  this,  we  need  scarcely  be  sur 
prised  to  learn  that  there  is  but  one  paying  daily  newspaper  for  a  population  of 
more  than  seventeen  millions. 

|  Kural  and  Domestic  Life  in  Germany,  27. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  325 

can  threaten  him  with  ejection  or  the  vrorkhouse  so  long  as  he  is  active 
and  economical.  He  walks,  therefore,  with  a  bold  step  ;  he  looks  you 
in  the  fsv?e  with  the  air  of  a  free  man,  but  of  a  respectful  one." — 
Ibid. 

The  reader  may  now  advantageously  compare  the  progress  of  the 
last  half  century  in  Ireland  and  in  Germany.  Doing  so,  he  will  see 
that  in  the  former  there  has  been  a  steady  tendency  to  the  expul 
sion  of  the  mechanic,  the  exhaustion  of  the  soil,  the  consolidation 
of  the  land,  and  the  resolution  of  the  whole  nation  into  a  mass  of 
wretched  tenants  at  will,  holding  under  the  middleman  agent  of 
-the  great  absentee  landlord,  with  constant  decline  in  the  material, 
moral,  and  intellectual  condition  of  all  classes  of  society,  and  con 
stantly  increasing  inability  on  the  part  of  the  nation  to  assert  its 
rights.  Seventy  years  since  the  Irish  people  extorted  the  admission 
of  their  right  to  legislate  for  themselves,  whereas  now  the  total  dis 
appearance  of  the  nation  from  among  the  communities  of  the  world 
is  regarded  as  a  thing  to  be  prayed  for,  and  a  calculation  is  made 
that  but  twenty-four  more  years  will  be  required,  at  the  present 
rate,  for  its  total  extinction.  In  Germany,  on  the  contrary,  the 
mechanic  is  everywhere  invited,  and  towns  are  everywhere  growing. 
The  soil  is  being  everywhere  enriched,  and  agricultural  knowledge 
is  being  diffused  throughout  the  nation ;  and  land  so  rapidly  ac 
quires  value  that  it  is  becoming  more  divided  from  day  to  day. 
The  proprietor  is  everywhere  taking  the  place  of  the  serf,  and  the 
demand  for  labour  becomes  steady  and  man  becomes  valuable. 
The  people  are  everywhere  improving  in  their  material  and  moral 
condition ;  and  so  rapid  is  the  improvement  of  intellectual  condi 
tion,  that  German  literature  now  commands  the  attention  of  the 
whole  civilized  world.  With  each  step  in  this  direction,  there  is 
an  increasing  tendency  toward  union  and  peace,  whereas  as  Ireland 
declines  there  is  an  increasing  tendency  toward  discord,  violence, 
and  crime.  Having  studied  these  things,  the  reader  may  then  call 
to  mind  that  Ireland  has  thus  declined,  although,  in  the  whole 
half  century,  her  soil  has  never  been  pressed  by  the  foot  of  an 
enemy  in  arms,  whereas  Germany  has  thus  improved,  although 
repeatedly  overrun  and  plundered  by  hostile  armies. 

28 


326  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

/ 

HOW   FREEDOM   GROWS   IN   RUSSIA. 

Among  the  nations  of  the  world  whose  policy  looks  to  carrying 
out  the  views  of  Adam  Smith,  in  bringing  the  artisan  as  near  as 
possible  to  the  food  and  the  wool,  Russia  stands  distinguished. 
The  information  we  have  in  reference  to  the  movements  of  that, 
country  is  limited;  but  all  of  it  tends  to  prove  that  with  the 
growth  of  population  and  wealth,  and  with  the  increased  diversifi 
cation  of  labour,  land  is  acquiring  value,  and  man  is  advancing 
rapidly  toward  freedom.  "  The  industry  of  Russia,"  says  a  re 
cent  American  journal — 

"  Has  been  built  up,  as  alone  the  industry  of  a  nation  can  be,  un 
der  a  system  of  protection,  from  time  to  time  modified  as  experience 
has  dictated ;  but  never  destroyed  by  specious  abstractions  or  the  dog 
mas  of  mere  doctrinaires.  Fifty  years  ago  manufactures  were  un 
known  there,  and  the  caravans  trading  to  the  interior  and  supplying 
the  wants  of  distant  tribes  in  Asia  went  laden  with  the  products  of 
British  and  other  foreign  workshops.  When  the  present  emperor 
mounted  the  throne,  in  1825,  the  country  could  not  produce  the  cloth 
required  to  uniform  its  own  soldiers ;  further  back,  in  1800,  the  ex 
portation  of  coloured  cloth  was  prohibited  under  severe  penalties ;  but 
through  the  influence  of  adequate  protection,  as  early  as  1834,  Rus 
sian  cloth  was  taken  by  the  caravans  to  Kiachta;  and  at  this  day 
the  markets  of  all  Central  Asia  are  supplied  by  the  fabrics  of  Russian 
looms,  which  in  Aflghanistan  and  China  are  crowding  British  cloths 
entirely  out  of  sale — notwithstanding  the  latter  have  the  advantage  in 
transportation — while  in  Tartary  and  Russia  itself  British  woollens 
are  now  scarcely  heard  of.  In  1812  there  were  in  Russia  136  cloth 
factories;  in  1824,  324;  in  1812  there  were  129  cotton  factories;  in 
1824,  484.  From  1812  to  1839  the  whole  number  of  manufacturing 
establishments  in  the  empire  more  than  trebled,  and  since  then  they 
have  increased  in  a  much  greater  ratio,  though  from  the  absence  of 
official  statistics  we  are  not  able  to  give  the  figures.  Of  the  total 
amount  of  manufactured  articles  consumed  in  1843,  but  one-sixth 
were  imported.  And  along  with  this  vast  aggrandizement  of  manu 
facturing  industry  and  commerce,  there  has  been  a  steady  increase  of 
both  imports  and  exports,  as  well  as  of  revenue  from  customs.  The 
increase  in  imports  has  consisted  of  articles  of  luxury  and  raw  ma 
terials  for  manufacture.  And,  as  if  to  leave  nothing  wanting  in  tho 
demonstration  the  increase  of  exports  has  constantly  included  more  and 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  327 

me  re  of  the  products  of  agriculture.  Thus  in  this  empire  we  see  what 
we  must  always  see  under  an  adequate  and  judicious  system  of  protec 
tion,  that  a  proper  tariff  not  only  improves,  refines,  and  diversities  the 
labour  of  a  country,  but  enlarges  its  commerce,  increases  the  pros 
perity  of  its  agricultural  population,  renders  the  people  better  and 
better  able  to  contribute  to  the  support  of  the  Government,  and  raises 
the  nation  tc  a  position  of  independence  and  real  equality  among  the 
powers  of  the  globe.  All  this  is  indubitably  proved  by  the  example 
of  Russia,  for  there  protection  has  been  steady  and  adequate,  and  the 
consequences  are  what  we  have  described." — N.  York  Tribune. 

The  reader  may  advantageously  compare  the  following  sketch, 
from  the  same  source,  of  the  present  position  of  Russia,  so  recent 
ly  a  scene  of  barbarism,  with  that  already  laid  before  him,  of  her 
neighbour  Turkey,  whose  policy  commands  to  so  great  an  extent 
the  admiration  of  those  economists  who  advocate  the  system  which 
looks  to  converting  the  whole  world  outside  of  England  into  one 
vast  farm,  and  all  its  people,  men,  women,  and  children,  into  field 
labourers,  dependent  on  one  great  workshop  in  which  to  make  all 
their  exchanges  : — 

"Russia,  we  are  told,  is  triumphant  in  the  Great  Exhibition.  Her 
natural  products  excite  interest  and  admiration  for  their  variety  and 
excellence ;  her  works  of  art  provoke  astonishment  for  their  richness 
and  beauty.  Her  jewellers  and  gold-workers  carry  off  the  palm  from 
even  those  of  Paris.  Her  satins  and  brocades  compete  with  the  rich 
est  contributions  of  Lyons.  She  exhibits  tables  of  malachite  and 
caskets  of  ebony,  whose  curious  richness  indicates  at  once  the  lavish 
expenditure  of  a  barbaric  court,  and  the  refinement  and  taste  of  civil 
ization.  Nor  do  we  deem  it  of  much  account  that  her  part  of  the 
exhibition  is  not  exclusively  the  work  of  native  artisans.  Her  satins 
are  none  the  less  genuine  product  of  the  country  because  the  loveliest 
were  woven  by  emigrants  from  the  Croix  Rousse  or  the  Guillotitfre,  se 
duced  by  high  wages  from  their  sunnier  home  in  order  to  build  up  the 
industry  of  the  Great  Empire,  and  train  the  grandsons  of  Mongol 
savages  in  the  exquisite  mysteries  of  French  taste  and  dexterity.  It 
matters  not  that  the  exhibition  offers  infinitely  more  than  a  fair  illus 
tration  of  the  average  capacity  of  Russian  labour.  It  is  none  the  less 
true  that  a  people  who  half  a  century  ago  were  without  manufactures 
of  any  but  the  rudest  kind,  are  now  able  by  some  means  to  furnish 
forth  an  unsurpassed  display,  though  all  the  world  is  there  to  compete 
with  them. 

"  We  are  no  lover  of  Russian  power,  and  have  no  wish  to  exaggerate 
the  degree  of  perfection  to  which  Russian  industry  has  attained.  We 
do  not  doubt  that  any  cotton  factory  in  the  environs  of  Moscow  might 
be  found  imperfect  when  contrasted  with  one  of  Manchester  or  Lowell. 
We  are  confident  that  the  artisans  of  a  New-England  village  very  far 
surpass  those  of  a  Russian  one  in  most  qualities  of  intelligence  and 


328  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

manhood.  Indeed,  it  is  absurd  to  make  the  comparison  ;  it  is  absurd 
to  do  what  travellers  insist  on  doing — that  is,  to  judge  every  nation 
by  the  highest  standard,  and  pronounce  each  a  failure  which  does 
not  exhibit  the  intellect  of  France,  the  solidity  and  power  of  England, 
or  the  enterprise,  liberty,  and  order  of  the  United  States.  All  that 
should  be  asked  is,  whether  a  people  has  surpassed  its  own  previous 
condition  and  is  in  the  way  of  improvement  and  progress.  And  that, 
in  respect  of  industry,  at  least,  Russia  is  in  that  way,  her  show  at  the 
Exhibition  may  safely  be  taken  as  a  brilliant  and  conclusive  proof." 

Russia  is  powerful,  and  is  becoming  more  so  daily.  Why  is  it 
so?  It  is  because  her  people  are  daily  more  and  more  learning 
the  advantages  of  diversification  of  labour  and  combination  of 
exertion,  and  more  and  more  improving  in  their  physical  and  intel 
lectual  condition — the  necessary  preliminaries  to  an  improvement 
of  their  political  condition.  Turkey  is  weak;  and  why  is  it  so? 
Because  among  her  people  the  habit  of  association  is  daily  passing 
away  as  the  few  remaining  manufactures  disappear,  and  as  the 
travelling  pedler  supersedes  the  resident  shopkeeper. 

It  is  said,  however,  that  Russian  policy  is  unfavorable  to  com 
merce  ;  but  is  not  its  real  tendency  that  of  producing  a  great  inter 
nal  commerce  upon  which  alone  a  great  foreign  one  can  be  built  ? 
That  it  does  produce  the  effect  of  enabling  her  people  to  combine 
their  exertions  for  their  common  benefit  is  most  certain;  and 
equally  so  that  it  tends  to  give  her  that  direct  intercourse  with 
the  world  which  is  essential  to  the  existence  of  freedom.  The 
slave  trades  with  the  world  through  his  master,  who  fixes  the  price 
of  the  labour  he  has  to  sell  and  the  food  and  clothing  he  has  to 
buy,  and  this  is  exactly  the  system  that  Great  Britain  desires  to  es 
tablish  for  the  farmers  of  the  world — she  being  the  only  buyer  of 
raw  products,  and  the  only  seller  of  manufactured  ones. 

So  long  as  Russia  exports  only  food  and  hemp,  she  can  trade 
with  Brazil  for  sugar,  and  with  Carolina  for  cotton,  only  through 
the  medium  of  British  ships,  British  ports,  British  merchants,  and 
British  looms,  for  she  can  need  no  raw  cotton ;  but  with  the  ex 
tension  of  manufactures  she  needs  cotton,  which  she  can  draw 
directly  from  the  planter,  paying  him  in  iron,  by  aid  of  which  he 
may  have  machinery.  In  illustration  of  this,  we  have  the  fact 
that  so  recently  as  in  1846,  out  of  a  total  consumption  of  cotton 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  329 

amounting  to  810,656  cwts.,  no  less  than  122,082  cwts.  had  passed 
through  British  spindles;  whereas  in  1850,  out  of  a  total  consump 
tion  more  than  one-half  greater,  and  amounting  to  487,612  cwts., 
only  64,505  cwts.  had  passed  through  the  hands  of  the  spinners 
of  Manchester. 

The  export  of  raw  cotton  to  Russia  has  since  largely  increased, 
but  the  precise  extent  of  increase  cannot  be  ascertained,  although 
some  estimate  may  be  formed  from  the  growth  of  the  consumption 
of  one  of  the  principal  dyeing  materials,  indigo ;  the  export  of 
which  from  England  to  Russia  is  thus  given  in  the  London 
Economist : — 

1849.  1850.  1851.  1852. 

Chests,  3225 4105 4953 5175 

"\Ye  have  here  an  increase  in  three  years  of  almost  sixty  per 
cent.,  proving  a  steady  increase  in  the  power  to  obtain  clothing 
and  to  maintain  commerce  internal  and  external,  directly  the  re 
verse  of  what  has  been  observed  in  Turkey,  Ireland,  India,  and 
other  countries  in  which  the  British  system  prevails;  and  the  reason 
of  this  is  that  that  system  looks  to  destroying  the  power  of  associa 
tion.  It  would  have  all  the  people  of  India  engage  themselves  in 
raising  cotton,  and  all  those  of  Brazil  and  Cuba  in  raising  sugar, 
while  those  of  Germany  and  Russia  should  raise  food  and  wool ; 
and  we  know  well  that  when  all  are  farmers,  or  all  planters,  the 
power  of  association  scarcely  exists;  the  consequence  of  which 
is  seen  in  the  exceeding  weakness  of  all  the  communities  of  the 
world  in  which  the  plough  and  the  loom,  the  hammer  and  the  harrow, 
are  prevented  from  coming  together.  It  is  an  unnatural  one. 
Men  everywhere  seek  to  combine  their  exertions  with  those  of 
their  fellow-men ;  an  object  sought  to  be  attained  by  the  introduc 
tion  of  that  diversification  of  employment  advocated  throughout 
his  work  by  the  author  of  The  Wealth  of  Nations.  How  naturally 
the  habit  of  association  arises,  and  how  beneficial  are  its  effects, 
may  be  seen  from  a  few  extracts  now  offered  to  the  reader,  from 
an  interesting  article  in  a  recent  English  journal.  In  Russia, 

says  its  author — 

28* 


330  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

"  There  does  not  prevail  that  marked  distinction  between  the  modes 
of  life  of  the  dwellers  in  town  and  country  which  is  found  in  oilier 
countries ;  and  the  general  freedom  of  trade,  which  in  other  nations  is 
still  an  object  of  exertion,  has  existed  in  Russia  since  a  long  by-gone 
period.  A  strong  manufacturing  and  industrial  tendency  prevails  in 
a  large  portion  of  Russia,  which,  based  upon  the  communal  system, 
has  led  to  the  formation  of  what  we  may  term  'national  association 
factories/  " 

In  corroboration  of  this  view  of  the  general  freedom  of  internal 
tirade,  we  are  told  that,  widely  different  from  the  system  of  western 
Europe, 

"  There  exists  no  such  thing  as  a  trade  guild,  or  company,  nor  any 
restraint  of  a  similar  nature.  Any  member  of  a  commune  can  at 
pleasure  abandon  the  occupation  he  may  be  engaged  in,  and  take  up 
another;  all  that  he  has  to  do  in  effecting  the  change  is  to  quit  the 
commune  in  which  his  old  trade  is  carried  on,  and  repair  to  another, 
where  his  new  one  is  followed." 

The  tendency  of  manufacturing  industry  is 

"For  the  most  part  entirely  communal;  the  inhabitants  of  one 
village,  for  example,  are  all  shoemakers,  in  another  smiths,  in  a  third 
tanners  only,  and  so  on.  A  natural  division  of  labor  thus  prevails 
exactly  as  in  a  factory.  The  members  of  the  commune  mutually  as 
sist  one  another  with  capital  or  labor  ;  purchases  are  usually  made  in 
common,  and  sales  also  invariably,  but  they  always  send  their  manu 
factures  in  a  general  mass  to  the  towns  and  market-places,  where  they 
have  a  common  warehouse  for  their  disposal." 

In  common  with  all  countries  that  are  as  yet  unable  fully  ^to 
carry  out  the  idea  of  Adam  Smith,  of  compressing  a  large  quantity 
of  food  and  wool  into  a  piece  of  cloth,  and  thus  fitting  it  for  cheap 
transportation  to  distant  markets,  and  which  are,  therefore,  largely 
dependent  on  those  distant  markets  for  the  sale  of  raw  produce, 
the  cultivation  of  the  soil  in  Russia  is  not — 

"  In  general,  very  remunerative,  and  also  can  only  be  engaged  in 
for  a  few  months  in  the  year,  which  is,  perhaps,  the  reason  why  the 
peasant  in  Russia  evinces  so  great  an  inclination  for  manufactures  and 
other  branches  of  industry,  the  character  of  which  generally  depends 
on  the  nature  of  raw  products  found  in  the  districts  where  they  are 
followed." 

Without  diversification  of  employment  much  labour  would  be 
wasted,  and  the  people  would  find  themselves  unable  to  purchase 
clothing  or  machinery  of  cultivation.  Throughout  the  empire  the 
labourer  appears  to  follow  in  the  direction  indicated  by  nature, 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  331 

working  up  the  materials  on  the  land  on  which  they  arc  produced, 
and  thus  economizing  transportation.     Thus — 

"  In  the  government  of  Yaroslaf  the  whole  inhabitants  of  one  place 
are  potters.  Upward  of  two  thousand  inhabitants  in  another  place 
are  rope-makers  and  harness-makers.  The  population  of  the  district 
of  Uglitich  in  1835  sent  three  millions  of  yards  of  linen  cloth  to  the 
markets  of  Rybeeck  and  Moscow.  The  peasants  on  one  estate  are  ail 
candle-makers,  on  a  second  they  are  all  manufacturers  of  felt  hats, 
and  on  a  third  they  are  solely  occupied  in  smiths'  work,  chiefly  the 
making  of  axes.  In  the  district  of  Pashechoa  there  are  about  seventy 
tanneries,  which  give  occupation  to  a  large  number  of  families  ;  they 
have  no  paid  workmen,  but  perform  all  the  operations  among  them 
selves,  preparing  leather  to  the  value  of  about  twenty-five  thousand 
roubles  a  year,  and  which  is  disposed  of  on  their  account  in  Rybeeck. 
In  the  districts  where  the  forest-trees  mostly  consist  of  lindens,  the  in 
habitants  are  principally  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  matting, 
which,  according  to  its  greater  or  less  degree  of  fineness,  is  employed 
either  for  sacking  or  sail  cloth,  or  merely  as  packing  mats.  The  lin 
den-tree  grows  only  on  moist  soils,  rich  in  black  Jiumus,  or  vegetable 
mould  ;  but  will  not  grow  at  all  in  sandy  soils,  which  renders  it  com 
paratively  scarce  in  some  parts  of  Russia,  while  in  others  it  grows 
abundantly.  The  mats  are  prepared  from  the  inner  bark,  and  as  the 
linden  is  ready  for  stripping  at  only  fifteen  years  of  age,  and  indeed 
is  best  at  that  age,  these  trees  form  a  rich  source  of  profit  for  those 
who  dwell  in  the  districts  where  they  grow." 

We  have  here  a  system  of  combined  exertion  that  tends  greatly  to 
account  for  the  rapid  progress  of  Russia  in  population,  wealth , 
and  power. 

The  men  who  thus  associate  for  local  purposes  acquire  informa 
tion,  and  with  it  the  desire  for  more ;  and  thus  we  find  them  pass 
ing  freely,  as  interest  may  direct  them,  from  one  part  of  the  em 
pire  to  another — a  -state  of  things  very  different  from  that  pro 
duced  in  England  by  the  law  of  settlement,  under  which  men 
have  everywhere  been  forbidden  to  change  their  locality,  and 
everywhere  been  liable  to  be  seized  and  sent  back  to  their  original 
parishes,  lest  they  might  at  some  time  or  other  become  chargeable 
upon  the  new  one  in  which  they  had  desired  to  find  employment, 
for  which  they  had  sought  in  vain  at  home.  "  The  Russian"  says 
our  author — 

"  Has  a  great  disposition  for  wandering  about  beyond  his  native 
place,  but  not  for  travelling  abroad.  The  love  of  home  seems  to  be 
merged,  to  a  great  extent,  in  love  of  country.  A  Russian  feels  him 
self  at  home  everywhere  within  Russia ;  and,  in  a  political  sense,  this 


832  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

rambling  disposition  of  the  people,  and  the  close  intercourse  between 
the  inhabitants  of  the  various  provinces  to  which  it  leads,  contributes 
to  knit  a  closer  bond  of  union  between  the  people,  and  to  arouse  and 
maintain  a  national  policy  and  a  patriotic  love  of  country.  Although 
he  may  quit  his  native  place,  the  Russian  never  wholly  severs  the  con 
nection  with  it ;  and,  as  we  have  before  mentioned,  being  fitted  by 
natural  talent  to  turn  his  hand  to  any  species  of  work,  he  in  general 
never  limits  himself  in  his  wanderings  to  any  particular  occupation, 
but  tries  at  several ;  but  chooses  whatever  may  seem  to  him  the  most 
advantageous.  When  they  pursue  any  definite  extensive  trade,  such 
as  that  of  a  carpenter,  mason,  or  the  like,  in  large  towns,  they  asso 
ciate  together,  and  form  a  sort  of  trades'  association,  and  the  cleverest 
assume  the  position  of  a  sort  of  contractor  for  the  labour  required. 
Thus,  if  a  nobleman  should  want  to  build  a  house,  or  even  a  palace, 
in  St.  Petersburgh,  he  applies  to  such  a  contractor,  (prodratshnik,)  lays 
before  him  the  elevation  and  plans,  and  makes  a  contract  with  him  to 
do  the  work  required  for  a  specified  sum.  The  contractor  then  makes 
an  agreement  with  his  comrades  respecting  the  assistance  they  are  to 
give,  and  the  share  they  are  to  receive  of  the  profit ;  after  which  he 
usually  sets  off  to  his  native  place,  either  alone  or  with  some  of  his 
comrades,  to  obtain  the  requisite  capital  to  carry  on  the  work  with. 
The  inhabitants,  who  also  have  their  share  of  the  gains,  readily  make 
up  the  necessary  sum,  and  every  thing  is  done  in  trust  and  confidence  ; 
it  is,  indeed,  very  rare  to  hear  of  frauds  in  these  matters.  The  car 
penters  (plotniki)  form  a  peculiar  class  of  the  workmen  we  have  de 
scribed.  As  most  of  the  houses  in  Russia,  and  especially  in  the  coun 
try  parts,  are  built  of  wood,  the  number  and  importance  of  the  car 
penters,  as  a  class,  are  very  great  in  comparison  with  other  countries. 
Almost  every  peasant,  whatever  other  trade  he  may  follow,  is  also 
something  of  a  carpenter,  and  knows  how  to  shape  and  put  together 
the  timbers  for  a  dwelling.  The  plotniki  in  the  villages  are  never  any 
thing  more  than  these  general  carpenters,  and  never  acquire  any 
regular  knowledge  of  their  business.  The  real  Russian  plotniki  sel 
dom  carries  any  other  tools  with  him  than  an  axe  and  a  chisel,  and 
with  these  he  wanders  through  all  parts  of  the  empire,  seeking,  and 
everywhere  finding,  work." 

The  picture  here  presented  is  certainly  widely  different  from 
that  presented  by  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  A  Russian  appears 
to  be  at  home  everywhere  in  Russia.  He  wanders  where  he  will, 
everywhere  seeking  and  finding  work ;  whereas  an  Irishman  ap 
pears  hardly  to  be  at  home  anywhere  within  the  limits  of  the 
United  Kingdom.  In  England,  and  still  more  in  Scotland,  he  is 
not  acknowledged  as  a  fellow-citizen.  He  is  only  an  Irishman — 
one  of  those  half-savage  Celts  intended  by  nature  to  supply  the 
demand  of  England  for  cheap  labour;  that  is,  for  that  labour 
which  is  to  be  rewarded  by  the  scantiest  supplies  of  food  and 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  333 

clothing.  The  difference  in  the  moral  effect  of  the  two  systems  is 
thus  very  great.  The  one  tends  to  bring  about  that  combination 
of  exertion  which  everywhere  produces  a  kindly  habit  of  feeling, 
whereas  the  other  tends  everywhere  to  the  production  of  dis 
satisfaction  and  gloom ;  and  it  is  so  because  that  under  it  there  is 
necessarily  a  constant  increase  of  the  feeling  that  every  man  is  to 
live  by  the  taxation  of  his  neighbour,  buying  cheaply  what  that 
neighbour  has  to  sell,  and  selling  dearly  what  that  neighbour  has  to 
buy.  The  existence  of  this  state  of  things  is  obvious  to  all  fa 
miliar  with  the  current  literature  of  England,  which  abounds  in 
exhibitions  of  the  tendency  of  the  system  to  render  man  a  tyrant 
to  his  wife,  his  daughter,  his  horse,  and  even  his  dog.  A  recent 
English  traveller  in  Russia  presents  a  different  state  of  feeling  as 
there  existing.  "  The  Russian  coachman,"  he  says — 

"  Seldom  uses  his  whip,  and  generally  only  knocks  with  it  upon  the 
footboard  of  the  sledge,  by  way  of  a  gentle  admonition  to  his  steed, 
with  whom,  meanwhile,  he  keeps  up  a  running  colloquy,  seldom  giving 
him  harder  words  than  *  My  brother — my  friend — my  little  pigeon — my 
sweetheart.'  '  Come,  my  pretty  pigeon,  make  use  of  your  legs/  he  will 
say.  '  What,  now  !  art  blind  ?  Come,  be  brisk  !  Take  care  of  that 
stone,  there.  Don't  see  it? — There,  that's  right!  Bravo!  hop,  hop, 
hop!  Steady  boy,  steady!  What  art  turning  thy  head  for?  Look 
out  boldly  before  thee  !— Hurra !  Yukh  !  Yukh  ! 

"I  could  not,"  he  continues,  "help  contrasting  this  wTith  the  offen 
sive  language  we  constantly  hear  in  England  from  carters  and  boys 
employed  in  driving  horses.  You  are  continually  shocked  by  the 
oaths  used.  They  seem  to  think  the  horses  will  not  go  unless  they 
swear  at  them;  and  boys  consider  it  manly  to  imitate  this  example, 
and  learn  to  swear  too,  and  break  God's  commandments  by  taking 
his  holy  name  in  vain.  And  this  while  making  use  of  a  fine,  noble 
animal  he  has  given  for  our  service  and  not  for  abuse.  There  is 
much  unnecessary  cruelty  in  the  treatment  of  these  dumb  creatures, 
for  they  are  often  beaten  when  doing  their  best,  or  from  not  under 
standing  what  their  masters  want  them  to  do." 

Of  the  truth  of  this,  as  regards  England,  the  journals  of  that 
country  often  furnish  most  revolting  evidence ;  but  the  mere  fact 
that  there  exists  there  a  society  for  preventing  cruelty  to  animals, 
would  seem  to  show  that  its  services  had  been  much  needed. 

The  manner  in  which  the  system  of  diversified  labour  is  gradu 
ally  extending  personal  freedom  among  the  people  of  Russia,  and 
preparing  them  eventually  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  highest  de- 


334  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

gree   of  political    freedom,  is   shown  in   the   following   passage. 
"  The  landholders,"  says  the  author  before  referred  to — 

"Having  serfs,  gave  them  permission  to  engage  in  manufactures, 
and  to  seek  for  work  for  themselves  where  they  liked,  on  the  mere  condi 
tion  of  paying  their  lord  a  personal  tax,  (obrok.}  Each  person  is  rated 
according  to  his  personal  capabilities,  talents,  and  capacities,  at  a  cer 
tain  capital ;  and  according  to  what  he  estimates  himself  capable  of 
gaining,  he  is  taxed  at  a  fixed  sum  as  interest  of  that  capital.  Actors 
and  singers  are  generally  serfs,  and  they  are  obliged  to  pay  obrok,  for 
the  exercise  of  their  art,  as  much  as  the  loAvest  handicraftsman.  In 
recent  times  the  manufacturing  system  of  Western  Europe  has  been 
introduced  into  Russia,  and  the  natives  have  been  encouraged  to  es 
tablish  all  sorts  of  manufactures  on  these  models ;  and  it  remains  to 
be  seen  whether  the  new  system  will  have  the  anticipated  effect  of 
contributing  to  the  formation  of  a  middle  class,  which  hitherto  has 
been  the  chief  want  in  Russia  as  a  political  state." 

That  such  must  be  the  effect  cannot  be  doubted.  The  middle 
class  has  everywhere  grown  with  the  growth  of  towns  and  other 
places  of  local  exchange,  and  men  have  become  free  precisely  as 
they  have  been  able  to  unite  together  for  the  increase  of  the  pro 
ductiveness  of  their  labour.  In  every  part  of  the  movement  which 
thus  tends  to  the  emancipation  of  the  serf,  the  government  is  seen 
to  be  actively  co-operating,and  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  read  an  ac 
count  of  what  is  there  being  done  without  a  feeling  of  great  re 
spect  for  the  emperor,  aso  often,"  says  a  recent  writer,  "  de 
nounced  as  a  deadly  foe  to  freedom — the  true  father  of  his  coun 
try,  earnestly  striving  to  develop  and  mature  the  rights  of  his 
subjects."* 

For  male  serfs,  says  the  same  author,  at  all  times  until  recently, 
military  service  was  the  only  avenue  to  freedom.  It  required, 
however,  twenty  years'  service,  and  by  the  close  of  that  time  the 
soldier  became  so  accustomed  to  that  mode  of  life  that  he  rarely 
left  it.  A  few  years  since,  however,  the  term  was  shortened  to 
eight  years,  and  thousands  of  men  are  now  annually  restored  to 
civil  life,  free  men,  who  but  a  few  years  previously  had  been  slaves, 
liable  to  be  bought  and  sold  with  the  land. 

Formerly  the  lord  had  the  same  unlimited  power  of  disposing 

*  Pictures  from  St.  Petersburg,  by  E.  Jerrmann,  22. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  335 

of  his  serfs  that  is  now  possessed  by  the  people  of  our  Southern 
States.  The  serf  was  a  mere  chattel,  an  article  of  traffic  and 
merchandise;  and  husbands  and  wives,  parents  and  children,  were 
constantly  liable  to  be  separated  from  each  other.  JBy  an  ukase 
of  1827,  however,  they  were  declared  an  integral  and  inseparable 
portion  of  the  soil.  "The  immediate  consequence  of  this  decree," 
says  Mr.  Jerrmann,* 

"  Was  the  cessation,  at  least  in  its  most  repulsive  form,  of  the  de 
grading  traffic  in  human  flesh,  by  sale,  barter,  or  gift.  Thencefor 
ward  no  serf  could  be  transferred  to  another  owner,  except  by  the  sale 
of  the  land  to  which  he  belonged.  To  secure  to  itself  the  refusal  of 
the  land  and  the  human  beings  appertaining  to  it,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  avert  from  the  landholder  the  ruin  consequent  on  dealings 
with  usurers,  the  government  established  an  imperial  loan-bank,  which 
made  advances  on  mortgage  of  lands  to  the  extent  of  two-thirds  of 
their  value.  The  borrowers  had  to  pay  back  each  year  three  per  cent, 
of  the  loan,  besides  three  per  cent,  interest.  If  they  failed  to  do  this, 
the  Crown  returned  them  the  instalments  already  paid,  gave  them  the 
remaining  third  of  the  value  of  the  property,  and  took  possession  of 
the  land  and  its  population.  This  was  the  first  stage  of  freedom  for 
the  serfs.  They  became  Crown  peasants,  held  their  dwellings  and 
bit  of  land  as  an  hereditary  fief  from  the  Crown,  and  paid  annually 
for  the  same  a  sum  total  of  five  rubles,  (about  four  shillings  for  each 
male  person ;)  a  rent  for  which,  assuredly,  in  the  whole  of  Germany, 
the  very  poorest  farm  is  not  to  be  had ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  con 
sideration  that  in  case  of  bad  harvests,  destruction  by  hail,  disease, 
&c.,  the  Crown  is  bound  to  supply  the  strict  necessities  of  its  peasant, 
and  to  find  them  in  daily  bread,  in  the  indispensable  stock  of  cattl« 
and  seed-corn,  to  repair  their  habitations,  and  so  forth. 

"By  this  arrangement,  and  in  a  short  time,  a  considerable  portior 
of  the  lands  of  the  Russian  nobility  became  the  property  of  the  state 
and  with  it  a  large  number  of  serfs  became  Crown  peasants.  Tlik 
was  the  first  and  most  important  step  toward  opening  the  road  to  free 
dom  to  that  majority  of  the  Russian  population  which  consists  oi 
slaves." 

We  have  here  the  stage  of  preparation  for  that  division  of  tht 
land  which  has,  in  all  countries  of  the  world,  attended  the  growtl 
of  wealth  and  population,  and  which  is  essential  to  further  growti 
not  only  in  wealth  but  in  freedom.  Consolidation  of  the  land 
has  everywhere  been  the  accompaniment  of  slavery,  and  so  must 
it  always  be. 

•  *  Pictures  from  St.  Petersburg  23. 


336  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

At  the  next  step,  we  find  the  emperor  bestowing  upon  the  serf, 
as  preparatory  to  entire  freedom,  certain  civil  rights.  An  ukase 

"  Permitted  them  to  enter  into  contracts.  Thereby  was  accorded 
to  them  not  only  the  right  of  possessing  property,  but  the  infinitely 
higher  blessing  of  a  legal  recognition  of  their  moral  worth  as  men. 
Hitherto  the  serf  was  recognised  by  the  state  only  as  a  sort  of  beast 
in  human  form.  He  could  hold  no  property,  give  no  legal  evidence, 
take  no  oath.  No  matter  how  eloquent  his  speech,  he  was  dumb  be 
fore  the  law.  He  might  have  treasures  in  his  dwelling,  the  law  knew 
him  only  as  a  pauper.  His  word  and  honor  were  valueless  compared 
to  those  of  the  vilest  freeman.  In  short,  morally  he  could  not  be  said 
to  exist.  The  Emperor  Nicholas  gave  to  the  serfs,  that  vast  majority 
of  his  subjects,  the  first  sensation  of  moral  worth,  the  first  throb  of 
self-respect,  the  first  perception  of  the  rights  and  dignity  and  duty  of 
man  I  What  professed  friend  of  the  people  can  boast  to  have  done 
more,  or  yet  so  much,  for  so  many  millions  of  men  ?" — Ibid,  p.  24. 

"  Having  given  the  serfs  power  to  hold  property,  the  emperor 
now,  says  our  author,  "  taught  them  to  prize  the  said  property 
above  all  in  the  interest  of  their  freedom."  The  serf 

"  Could  not  buy  his  own  freedom,  but  he  became  free  by  the  pur 
chase  of  the  patch  of  soil  to  which  he  was  linkeM.  To  such  pur 
chase  the  right  of  contract  cleared  his  road.  The  lazy  Russian,  who 
worked  with  an  ill-will  toward  his  master,  doing  as  little  as  he  could 
for  the  latter's  profit,  toiled  day  and  night  for  his  own  advantage. 
Idleness  was  replaced  by  the  diligent  improvement  of  his  farm,  brutal 
drunkenness  by  frugality  and  sobriety ;  the  earth,  previously  neglect 
ed,  requited  the  unwonted  care  with  its  richest  treasures.  By  the 
magic  of  industry,  wretched  hovels  were  transformed  into  comfortable 
dwellings,  wildernesses  into  blooming  fields,  desolate  steppes  and  deep 
morasses  into  productive  land ;  whole  communities,  lately  sunk  in 
poverty,  exhibited  unmistakable  signs  of  competency  and  well-doing. 
The  serfs,  now  allowed  to  enter  into  contracts,  lent  the  lord  of  the 
soil  the  money  of  which  he  often  stood  in  need,  on  the  same  condi 
tions  as  the  Crown,  receiving  in  security  the  land  they  occupied,  their 
own  bodies,  and  the  bodies  of  their  wives  and  children.  The  noble 
man  preferred  the  serfs'  loan  to  the  government's  loan,  because,  when 
pay-day  came  for  the  annual  interest  and  instalment,  the  Crown,  if  he 
was  not  prepared  to  pay,  took  possession  of  his  estate,  having  funds 
wherewith  to  pay  him  the  residue  of  its  value.  The  parish  of  serfs, 
which  had  lent  money  to  its  owner,  lacked  these  funds.  Pay-day 
came,  the  debtor  did  not  pay,  but  neither  could  the  serfs  produce  the 
one-third  of  the  value  of  the  land  which  they  must  disburse  to  him 
in  order  to  be  free.  Thus  they  lost  their  capital  and  did  not  gain 
their  liberty.  But  Nicholas  lived !  the  father  of  his  subjects. 

"  Between  the  anxious  debtor  and  the  still  more  anxious  creditor 
now  interposed  an  imperial  ukase,  wrhich  in  such  cases  opened  to  the 
parishes  of  serfs  the  imperial  treasury.  Mark  this ;  for  it  is  worthy 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  337 

to  be  noted ;  the  Russian  imperial  treasury  was  opened  to  the  serfs, 
that  they  might  purchase  their  freedom  ! 

"  The  Government  might  simply  have  released  the  creditors  from 
their  embarrassment  by  paying  the  debtor  the  one-third  still  due  to 
him,  and  then  land  and  tenants  belonged  to  the  state ; — one  parish 
the  more  of  Crown,  peasants.  Nicholas  did  not  adopt  that  course. 
He  lent  the  serfs  the  money  they  needed  to  buy  themselves  from  their 
master,  and  for  this  loan  (a  third  only  of  the  value)  they  mortgaged 
themselves  and  their  lands  to  the  Crown,  paid  annually  three  per  cent, 
interest  and  three  per  cent,  of  the  capital,  and  would  thus  in  about 
thirty  years  be  free,  and  proprietors  of  their  land  !  That  they  would 
be  able  to  pay  off  this  third  was  evident,  since,  to  obtain  its  amount 
they  had  still  the  same  resources  which  enabled  them  to  save  up  the 
two-thirds  already  paid.  Supposing,  however,  the  very  worst, — that 
through  inevitable  misfortunes,  such  as  pestilence,  disease  of  cattle, 
<fcc.,  they  were  prevented  satisfying  the  rightful  claims  of  the  Crown, 
in  that  case  the  Crown  paid  them  back  the  two-thirds  value  which 
they  had  previously  disbursed  to  their  former  owner,  and  they  became 
a  parish  of  Crown  peasants,  whose  lot,  compared  to  their  earlier  one, 
was  still  enviable.  But  not  once  in  a  hundred  times  do  such  cases 
occur,  while,  by  the  above  plan,  whole  parishes  gradually  acquire 
their  freedom,  not  by  a  sudden  and  violent  change,  which  could  not 
fail  to  have  some  evil  consequences,  but  in  course  of  time,  after  a  pro 
bation  of  labour  and  frugality,  and  after  thus  attaining  to  the  know 
ledge  that  without  these  two  great  factors  of  true  freedom,  no  real 
liberty  can  possibly  be  durable." — Ibid. 

The  free  peasants  as  yet  constitute  a  small  class,  but  they  live 

"  As  free  and  happy  men,  upon  their  own  land  ;  are  active,  frugal, 
and,  without  exception,  well  off.  This  they  must  be,  for  considerable 
means  are  necessary  for  the  purchase  of  their  freedom  ;  and,  once  free, 
and  in  possession  of  a  farm  of  their  own,  their  energy  and  industry, 
manifested  even  in  a  state  of  slavery,  are  redoubled  by  the  enjoyment 
of  personal  liberty,  and  their  earnings  naturally  increase  in  a  like 
measure. 

"  The  second  class,  the  crown  peasants,  are  far  better  off  (setting 
aside,  of  course,  the  consciousness  of  freedom)  than  the  peasants  of 
Germany.  They  must  furnish  their  quota  of  recruits,  but  that  is 
their  only  material  burden.  Besides  that,  they  annually  pay  to  the 
Crown  a  sum  of  five  rubles  (about  four  shillings)  for  each  male  per 
son  of  the  household.  Supposing  the  family  to  include  eight  working 
men,  which  is  no  small  number  for  a  farm,  the  yearly  tribute  paid 
amounts  to  thirty-two  shillings.  And  what  a  farm  that  must  be 
which  employs  eight  men  all  the  year  round !  In  what  country  of 
civilized  Europe  has  the  peasant  so  light  a  burden  to  bear?  How 
much  heavier  those  which  press  upon  the  English  farmer,  the  French, 
the  German,  and  above  all  the  Austrian,  who  often  gives  up  three- 
fourths  of  his  harvest  in  taxes.  If  the  Crown  peasant  be  so  fortunate 
as  to  be  settled  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a  large  town,  his  prosperity 
soon  exceeds  that  even  of  the  Altenburg  husbandmen,  said  to  be  the 

29 


338  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

richest  in  all  Germany.  On  the  other  hand,  he  can  never  purchase 
his  freedom  ;  hitherto,  at  least,  no  law  of  the  Crown  has  granted  him 
this  privilege." — Ibid,  156. 

That  this,  however,  is  the  tendency  of  every  movement,  must 
be  admitted  by  all  who  have  studied  the  facts*  already  given,  and 
who  read  the  following  account  of  the  commencemeilt  of  local  self- 
government  : — 

"  But  what  would  our  ardent  anti-Russians  say,  if  I  took  them  into 
the  interior  of  the  empire,  gave  them  an  insight  into  the  organization 
of  parishes,  and  showed  them,  to  their  infinite  astonishment,  what 
they  never  yet  dreamed  of,  that  the  whole  of  that  organization  is 
based  upon  republican  principles,  that  there  every  thing  has  its  origin 
in  election  by  the  people,  and  that  that  was  already  the  case  at  a  pe 
riod  when  the  great  mass  of  German  democrats  did  not  so  much  as 
know  the  meaning  of  popular  franchise.  Certainly  the  Russian  serfs 
do  not  know  at  the  present  day  what  it  means  ;  but  without  knowing 
the  name  of  the  thing,  without  having  ever  heard  a  word  of  La 
fayette's  ill-omened  '  trone  monarchique,  environnS  d' institutions  repnb- 
licaines,'  they  choose  their  own  elders,  their  administrators,  their  dis 
pensers  of  justice  and  finance,  and  never  dream  that  they,  slaves,  enjoy 
and  benefit  by  privileges  by  which  some  of  the  most  civilized  nations 
have  proved  themselves  incapable  of  profiting. 

'•  Space  does  not  here  permit  a  more  extensive  sketch  of  what  the 
Emperor  Nicholas  has  done,  and  still  is  daily  doing,  for  the  true  free 
dom  of  his  subjects  ;  but  what  I  have  here  brought  forward  must 
surely  suffice  to  place  him,  in  the  eyes  of  every  unprejudiced  person, 
in  the  light  of  a  real  lover  of  his  people.  That  his  care  has  created 
a  paradise — that  no  highly  criminal  abuse  of  power,  no  shameful  neg 
lect  prevails  in  the  departments  of  justice  and  police — it  is  hoped  no 
reflecting  reader  will  infer  from  this  exposition  of  facts.  But  the 
still-existing  abuses  alter  nothing  in  my  view  of  the  emperor's  cha 
racter,  of  his  assiduous  efforts  to  raise  his  nation  out  of  the  deep 
slough  in  which  it  still  is  partly  sunk,  of  his  efficacious  endeavours  to 
elevate  his  people  to  a  knowledge  and  use  of  their  rights  as  men — 
alter  nothing  in  my  profound  persuasion  that  Czar  Nicholas  I.  is  the 
true  father  of  his  country." — Ibid,  27. 

We  are  told  that  the  policy  of  Russia  is  adverse  to  the  progress 
of  civilization,  while  that  of  England  is  favourable  to  it,  and  that 
we  should  aid  the  latter  in  opposing  the  former.  How  is  this  to 
be  proved?  Shall  we  look  to  Ireland  for  the  proof?  If  we  do, 
we  shall  meet-  there  nothing  but  famine,  pestilence,  and  depopula 
tion.  Or  to  Scotland,  where  men,  whose  ancestors  had  occupied 
the  same  spot  for  centuries,  are  being  hunted  down  that  they 
may  be  transported  to  the  shores  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  there  to 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  339 

perish,  as  they  so  recently  have  done,  of  cold  and  of  hunger  ?  Or 
to  India,  whose  whole  class  of  small  proprietors  and  manufacturers 
has  disappeared  under  the  blighting  influence  of  her  system,  and 
whose  commerce  diminishes  now  from  year  to  year  ?  Or  to  Por 
tugal,  the  weakest  and  most  wretched  of  the  communities  of  Eu 
rope  ?  Or  to  China,  poisoned  with  smuggled  opium,  that  costs  the 
nation  annually  little  less  than  forty  millions  of  dollars,  without 
which  the  Indian  government  could  not  be  maintained  ?  Look 
•where  we  may,  we  see  a  growing  tendency  toward  slavery  wherever 
the  British  system  is  permitted  to  obtain ;  whereas  freedom  grows 
in  the  ratio  in  which  that  system  is  repudiated. 

That  such  must  necessarily  be  the  case  will  be  seen  by  every 
reader  who  will  for  a  moment  reflect  on  the  difference  between  the 
effect  of  the  Russian  system  on  the  condition  of  Russian  women, 
and  that  of  the  British  system  on  the  condition  of  those  of 
India.  In  the  former  there  is  everywhere  arising  a  demand  for 
women  to  be  employed  in  the  lighter  labour  of  conversion,  and 
thus  do  they  tend  from  day  to  day  to  become  more  self-supporting, 
and  less  dependent  on  the  will  of  husbands,  brothers,  or  sons.  In 
the  other  the  demand  for  their  labour  has  passed  away,  and 
their  condition  declines,  and  so  it  must  continue  to  do  while  Man 
chester  shall  be  determined  upon  closing  the  domestic  demand  for 
cotton  and  driving  the  whole  population  to  the  production  of  sugar, 
rice,  and  cotton,  for  export  to  England. 

The  system  of  Russia  is  attractive  of  population,  and  French, 
German,  and  American  mechanics  of  every  description  find  de 
mand  for  their  services.  That  of  England  is  repulsive,  as  is  seen 
by  the  forced  export  of  men  from  England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  and 
India,  now  followed  by  whole  cargoes  of  women*  sent  out  by 
aid  of  public  contributions,  presenting  a  spectacle  almost  as  hu 
miliating  to  the  pride  of  the  sex  as  can  be  found  in  the  slave  ba 
zaar  of  Constantinople. 

*  The  cargo  of  a  ship  that  has  recently  sailed  is  stated  to  have  consisted  of 
more  than  a  thousand  females. 


340  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

HOW  FREEDOM   GROWS   IN   DENMARK. 

COMPARED  with  Ireland,  India,  or  Turkey,  DENMARK  is  a  very 
poor  country.  She  has,  says  one  of  the  most  enlightened  of  mo 
dern  British  travellers — 

"  No  metals  or  minerals,  no  fire  power,  no  water  power,  no  products 
or  capabilities  for  becoming  a  manufacturing  country  supplying  foreign 
consumers.  She  has  no  harbours  on  the  North  Sea.  Her  navigation 
is  naturally  confined  to  the  Baltic.  Her  commerce  is  naturally  con 
fined  to  the  home  consumption  of  the  necessaries  and  luxuries  of  civil 
ized  life,  which  the  export  of  her  corn  and  other  agricultural  products 
enables  her  to  import  and  consume.  She  stands  alone  in  her  corner 
of  the  world,  exchanging  her  loaf  of  bread,  which  she  can  spare,  for 
articles  she  cannot  provide  for  herself,  but  still  providing  for  herself 
every  thing  she  can  by  her  own  industry."* 

That  industry  is  protected  by  heavy  import  duties,  and  those 
duties  are  avowedly  imposed  with  the  view  of  enabling  the  farmer 
everywhere  to  have  the  artisan  at  his  side ;  thus  bringing  together 
the  producers  and  the  consumers  of  the  earth.  "  The  greater  part 
of  their  clothing  materials/'  says  Mr.  Laing — 

"  Linen,  mixed  linen  and  cotton,  and  woollen  cloth,  is  home-made  ; 
and  the  materials  to  be  worked  up,  the  cotton  yarns,  dye  stuffs,  and 
utensils,  are  what  they  require  from  the  shops.  The  flax  and  wool 
are  grown  and  manufactured  on  the  peasant's  farm;  the  spinning 
and  weaving  done  in  the  house  ;  the  bleaching,  dyeing,  fulling  done 
at  home  or  in  the  village."  *  *  *  "  Bunches  of  ribbons,  silver 
clasps,  gold  ear-rings,  and  other  ornaments  of  some  value,  are  profusely 
used  in  many  of  the  female  dresses,  although  the  main  material  is  home 
made  woollen  and  linen.  Some  of  these  female  peasant  costumes  are 
very  becoming  when  exhibited  in  silk,  fine  cloth,  and  lace,  as  they  are 
worn  by  handsome  country  girls,  daughters  of  rich  peasant  proprie 
tors  in  the  islands,  who  sometimes  visit  Copenhagen.  They  have  often 
the  air  and  appearance  of  ladies,  and  in  fact  are  so  in  education,  in 
their  easy  or  even  wealthy  circumstances,  and  an  inherited  superiority 
over  others  of  the  same  class."  *  *  *  "  In  a  large  country  church 
at  Gettorf,  my  own  coat  and  the  minister's  were,  as  far  as  I  could  ob 
serve,  the  only  two  in  the  congregation  not  of  home-made  cloth ;  and 

*  Laing's  Denmark  and  the  Duchies,  London,  1852,  299. 


DOMESTIC  AND   FOREIGN.  341 

in  Copenhagen  the  working  and  every-day  clothes  of  respectable  trades 
men  and  people  of  the  middle  class,  and  of  all  the  artisans  and  tho 
lower  labouring  classes,  are,  if  not  home-made  and  sent  to  them  by 
their  friends,  at  least  country  made ;  that  is,  not  factory  made,  but 
spun,  woven,  and  sold  in  the  web,  by  peasants  who  have  more  than 
they  want  for  their  family  use,  to  small  shopkeepers.  This  is  particu 
larly  the  case  with  linen.  Flax  is  a  crop  on  every  farm ;  and  the 
skutching,  hackling,  spinning,  weaving,  and  bleaching  are  carried  on 
in  every  country  family." — Pp.  381,  382,  383. 

The  manufacture  of  this  clothing  finds  employment  for  almost 
the  whole  female  population  of  the  country,  and  for  a  large  pro 
portion  of  the  male  population  during  the  winter  months.  Under 
a  different  system,  the  money  price  of  this  clothing  would  be  less 
than  it  now  is — as  low,  perhaps,  as  it  has  been  in  Ireland — but 
what  would  be  its  labour  price?  Cloth  is  cheap  in  that  country, 
but  man  is  so  much  cheaper  that  he  not  only  goes  in  rags,  but  pe 
rishes  of  starvation,  because  compelled  to  exhaust  his  land  and 
waste  his  labour.  u  Where,"  asks  very  justly  Mr.  Laing — 

"  Would  be  the  gain  to  the  Danish  nation,  if  the  small  proportion 
of  its  numbers  who  do  not  live  by  husbandry  got  their  shirts  and 
jackets  and  all  other  clothing  one-half  cheaper,  and  the  great  major 
ity,  who  now  find  winter  employment  in  manufacturing  their  own 
clothing  materials,  for  the  time  and  labour  which  are  of  no  value  to 
them  at  that  season,  and  can  be  turned  to  no  account,  were  thrown 
idle  by  the  competition  of  the  superior  and  cheaper  products  of  ma 
chinery  and  the  factory?"— P.  385. 

None  !  The  only  benefit  derived  by  man  from  improvement  in 
the  machinery  of  conversion  is,  that  he  is  thereby  enabled  to  give 
more  time,  labour,  and  thought  to  the  improvement  of  the  earth, 
the  great  machine  of  production ;  and  in  that  there  can  be  no 
improvement  under  a  system  that  looks  to  the  exportation  of  raw 
products,  the  sending  away  of  the  soil,  and  the  return  of  no  manure 
to  the  land. 

The  whole  Danish  system  tends  to  the  local  employment  of  both 
labour  and  capital,  and  therefore  to  the  growth  of  wealth  and  the 
division  of  the  land,  and  the  improvement  of  the  modes  of  cultiva 
tion.  "  With  a  large  and  increasing  proportion — 

"  Of  the  small  farms  belonging  to  peasant  proprietors,  working 
themsejves  with  hired  labourers,  and  of  a  size  to  keep  from  five  to 

29* 


342  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

thirty  or  forty  cows  summer  and  winter,  there  are  many  large  farms 
of  a  size  to  keep  from  two  hundred  to  three  hundred,  and  even  four 
hundred  cows,  summer  and  winter,  and  let  to  verpachters,  or  large 
tenant  farmers,  paying  money  rents.  This  class  of  verpachters  are 
farmers  of  great  capital  and  skill,  very  intelligent  and  enterprising, 
well  acquainted  with  all  modern  improvements  in  husbandry,  using 
guano,  tile-draining,  pipe-draining,  and  likely  to  be  very  formidable 
rivals  in  the  English  markets  to  the  old-fashioned,  use-and-want  Eng 
lish  farmers,  and  even  to  most  of  our  improving  large  farmers  in  Scot 
land."—  Laing,  52. 

The  system  of  this  country  has  attracted  instead  of  repelling 
population,  and  with  its  growth  there  has  been  a  constant  and 
rapid  advance  toward  freedom.  The  class  of  verpachters  above 
described 

"Were  originally  strangers  from  Mecklenburg,  Brunswick,  and 
Hanover,  bred  to  the  complicated  arrangements  and  business  of  a  great 
dairy  farm,  and  they  are  the  best  educated,  most  skilful,  and  most 
successful  farmers  in  the  North  of  Europe.  Many  of  them  have  pur 
chased  large  estates.  The  extensive  farms  they  occupy,  generally  on 
leases  of  nine  years,  are  the  domains  and  estates  of  the  nobles,  which, 
before  1784,  were  cultivated  by  the  serfs,  who  were,  before  that  period, 
adscripti  glebce,  and  who  were  bound  to  work  every  day,  without  wages, 
on  the  main  farm  of  the  feudal  lord,  and  had  cottages  and  land,  on  the 
outskirts  of  the  estate,  to  work  upon  for  their  own  living  when  they 
were  not  wanted  on  the  farm  of  the  baron.  Their  feudal  lord  could 
imprison  them,  flog  them,  reclaim  them  if  they  had  deserted  from  his 
land,  and  had  complete  feudal  jurisdiction  over  them  in  his  baronial 
court."— P.  53. 

It  is,  however,  not  only  in  land,  but  in  various  other  modes, 
that  the  little  owner  of  capital  is  enabled  to  employ  it  with  advan 
tage.  "  The  first  thing  a  Dane  does  with  his  savings,"  says  Mr. 
Brown,*  British  consul  at  Copenhagen — 

"  Is  to  purchase  a  clock ;  then  a  horse  and  cow,  which  he  hires  out, 
and  which  pay  good  interest.  Then  his  ambition  is  to  become  a  petty 
proprietor  ;  and  this  class  of  persons  is  better  off  than  any  in  Denmark. 
Indeed,  I  know  no  people  in  any  country  who  have  more  easily  within 
their  reach  all  that  is  really  necessary  for  life  than  this  class,  which  is 
very  large  in  comparison  with  that  of  labourers." 

To  the  power  advantageously  to  employ  the  small  accumulations 
of  the  labourer,  it  is  due  that  the  proportion  of  small  proprietors 

#  Quoted  by  Kay,  Social  and  Political  Condition  of  England  and  the  Continent, 
vol.  i.  91. 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  343 

has  become  so  wonderfully  large.  "  The  largest  proportion  of  the 
country,  and  of  the  best  land  of  it,"  says  Mr.  Laing,*  is  in  their 
hands — 

"  With  farms  of  a  size  to  keep  ten  or  fifteen  cows,  and  which  they 
cultivate  by  hired  labour,  along  with  the  labour  of  the  family.  These 
email  proprietors,  called  huffner,  probably  from  lioff,  a  farm-steading 
and  court-yard,  correspond  to  the  yeomen,  small  freeholders,  and  states 
men  of  the  North  of  England,  and  many  of  them  are  wealthy.  Of  this 
class  of  estates,  it  is  reckoned  there  are  about  125,150  in  the  two 
duchies :  some  of  the  huffners  appear  to  be  copyholders,  not  free 
holders  ;  that  is,  they  hold  their  land  by  hereditary  right,  and  may 
sell  or  dispose  of  it;  but  their  land  is  subject  to  certain  fixed  payments 
of  money,  labour,  cartages,  ploughing  yearly  to  the  lord  of  the  manor 
of  which  they  hold  it,  or  to  fixed  fines  for  non-payment.  A  class  of 
smaller  land-holders  are  called  Innsters,  and  are  properly  cottars  with  a 
house,  a  yard,  and  land  for  a  cow  or  two,  and  pay  a  rent  in  money  and 
in  labour,  and  receive  wages,  at  a  reduced  rate,  for  their  work  all  the 
year  round.  They  are  equivalent  to  our  class  of  married  farm-ser 
vants,  but  with  the  difference  that  they  cannot  be  turned  off  at  the 
will  or  convenience  of  the  verpachter,  or  large  farmer,  but  hold  of  the 
proprietor  ;  and  all  the  conditions  under  which  they  hold — sometimes 
for  life,  sometimes  for  a  term  of  years — are  as  fixed  and  supported  by 
law  as  those  between  the  proprietor  and  the  verpachter.  Of  this  class 
there  are  about  67,710,  and  of  house-cottars  without  land,  17,480,  and 
36,283  day-labourers  in  husbandry.  The  land  is  well  divided  among 
a  total  population  of  only  662,500  souls." — P.  43. 

Even  the  poorest  of  these  labouring  householders  has  a  garden, 
some  land,  and  a  cow  ;f  and  everywhere  the  eye  and  hand  of  the 
little  proprietor  may  be  seen  busily  employed,  while  the  larger 
farmers,  says  our  author — 

"  Attend  our  English  cattle-shows  and  agricultural  meetings,  are 
educated  men,  acquainted  with  every  agricultural  improvement,  have 
agricultural  meetings  and  cattle-shows  of  their  own,  and  publish  the 
transactions  and  essays  of  the  members.  They  use  guano,  and  all  the 
animal  or  chemical  manures,  have  introduced  tile-draining,  machinery 
fur  making  pipes  and  tiles,  and  are  no  strangers  to  irrigation  on  their 
old  grass  meadows." — P.  127. 

As  a  natural  consequence,  the  people  are  well  clothed.  "  The 
proportion/'  says  Mr.  Laing — 

"  Of  well-dressed  people  in  the  streets  is  quite  as  great  as  in  our 
large  towns ;  few  are  so  shabby  in  clothes  as  the  unemployed  or  half- 


*  Denmark  and  the  Duchies,  42. 


344  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

employed  workmen  and  labourers  in  Edinburgh ;  and  a  proletarian 
class,  half-naked  and  in  rags,  is  not  to  be  seen.  The  supply  of  cloth 
ing  material  for  the  middle  and  lower  classes  seems  as  great,  whether 
we  look  at  the  people  themselves  or  at  the  second  or  third  rate  class  of 
shops  with  goods  for  their  use." — P.  379. 

In  regard  to  house  accommodation,  he  says — 

"  The  country  people  of  Denmark  and  the  duchies  are  well  lodged. 
The  material  is  brick.  The  roofing  is  of  thatch  in  the  country,  and  of 
tiles  in  the  towns.  Slate  is  unknown.  The  dwelling  apartments  are 
always  floored  with  wood.  I  have  described  in  a  former  note  the  great 
hall  in  which  all  the  cattle  and  crops  and  wagons  are  housed,  and  into 
which  the  dwelling  apartments  open.  The  accommodations  outside  of 
the  meanest  cottage,  the  yard,  garden,  and  offices,  approach  more  to 
the  dwellings  of  the  English  than  of  the  Scotch  people  of  the  same 
class."— P.  420. 

Every  parish  has  its  established  schoolmaster,  as  well  as 

"Its  established  minister;  but  it  appears  to  me  that  the  class  of 
parochial  schoolmasters  here  stands  in  a  much  higher  position  than  in 
Scotland.  They  are  better  paid,  their  houses,  glebes,  and  stipends  are 
better,  relatively  to  the  ordinary  houses  and  incomes  of  the  middle 
class  in  country  places,  and  they  are  men  of  much  higher  education 
than  their  Scotch  brethren."  *  *  *  "  It  is  quite  free  to  any  one 
•who  pleases  to  open  a  school ;  and  to  parents  to  send  their  children  to 
school  or  not,  as  they  please.  If  the  young  people  are  sufficiently  in 
structed  to  receive  confirmation  from  the  clergyman,  or  to  stand  an 
examination  for  admission  as  students  at  the  university,  where  or  how 
they  acquired  their  instruction  is  not  asked.  Government  has 
provided  schools,  and  highly  qualified  and  well-paid  teachers,  but  in 
vests  them  with  no  monopoly  of  teaching,  no  powers  as  a  corporate 
body,  and  keeps  them  distinct  from  and  unconnected  with  the  profes 
sional  body  in  the  university." — Pp.  170,  336. 

"  The  most  striking  feature  in  the  character  of  these  small  town 
populations,"  says  our  author — 

"  And  that  which  the  traveller  least  expects  to  find  in  countries  so 
secluded,  so  removed  from  intercourse  with  other  countries,  by  situa 
tion  and  want  of  exchangeable  products,  as  Sleswick,  Jutland,  and  tho 
Danish  islands,  is  the  great  diffusion  of  education,  literature,  and  lite 
rary  tastes.  In  towns,  for  instance,  of  6000  inhabitants,  in  England, 
we  seldom  find  such  establishments  as  the  6000  inhabitants  of  Aal- 
borg,  the  most  northerly -town  in  Jutland,  possess.  They  enjoy,  on 
the  banks  of  the  Lymfiord,  a  classical  school  for  the  branches  of  learn 
ing  required  from  students  entering  the  university ;  an  educational 
institution,  and  six  burger  schools  for  the  ordinary  branches  of  educa 
tion,  and  in  which  the  Lancastrian  method  of  mutual  instruction  is  in 
use ;  a  library  of  12,000  volumes,  belonging  to  the  province  of  Aal- 


DOMESTIC    AND   FOREIGN.  345 

borg,  is  open  to  the  public  ;  a  circulating  library  of  2000  volumes ; 
several  private  collections  and  museums,  to  which  access  is  readily 
given  ;  a  dramatic  association,  acting  every  other  Sunday ;  and  two 
club-houses  for  balls  and  concerts.  A  printing  office  and  a  newspaper, 
published  weekly  or  oftener,  are,  in  such  towns,  establishments  of 
course.  "VVyborg,  the  most  ancient  town  in  Jutland,  the  capital  in  the 
time  of  the  pagan  kings,  and  once  a  great  city,  with  twelve  parish 
churches  and  six  monasteries,  but  now  containing  no  remains  of  its 
former  grandeur,  and  only  about  3000  inhabitants,  has  its  newspaper 
three  times  a  week,  its  classical  school,  its  burger  school,  its  public 
library,  circulating  library,  and  its  dramatic  association  acting  six  or 
eight  plays  in  the  course  of  the  wrinter.  These,  being  county  towns, 
the  seats  of  district  courts  and  business,  have,  no  doubt,  more  of  such 
establishments  than  the  populations  of  the  towns  themselves  could 
support ;  but  this  indicates  a  wide  diffusion  of  education  and  intellec 
tual  tastes  in  the  surrounding  country.  Randers,  on  the  Guden  River, 
the  only  river  of  any  length  of  course  which  runs  into  the  Baltic  or 
Cattegat  from  the  peninsular  land,  and  the  only  one  in  which  salmon 
are  caught,  is  not  a  provincial  capital,  and  is  only  about  twenty-five 
English  miles  from  the  capital  Wyborg ;  but  it  has,  for  its  6000  in 
habitants,  a  classical  school,  several  burger  schools,  one  of  which  has 
above  300  children  taught  by  the  mutual-instruction  method,  a  book 
society,  a  musical  society,  a  circulating  library,  a  printing  press,  a 
newspaper  published  three  times  a  week,  a  club-house,  and  a  dramatic 
society.  '  Aarhuus,  with  about  the  same  population  as  Randers,  and 
about  the  same  distance  from  it  as  Randers  from  Wyborg,  has  a  high 
school,  two  burger  schools,  and  a  ragged  or  poor  school,  a  provincial 
library  of  3000  or  4000  volumes,  a  school  library  of  about  the  same 
extent,  a  library  belonging  to  a  club,  a  collection  of  minerals  and 
shells  belonging  to  the  high  schools,  a  printing  press,  (from  which  a 
newspaper  and  a  literary  periodical  are  issued,)  book  and  music  shops, 
a  club-house,  concert  and  ball-room,  and  a  dramatic  society.  Holste- 
bro,  a  little  inland  town  of  about  800  inhabitants,  about  thirty-five 
English  miles  west  from  Wyborg,  has  its  burger  school  on  the  mutual- 
instruction  system,  its  reading  society,  and  its  agricultural  society.  In 
every  little  town  in  this  country,  the  traveller  finds  educational  insti 
tutions  and  indications  of  intellectual  tastes,  such  as  the  taste  for  read 
ing,  music,  theatrical  representations,  wrhich,  he  cannot  but  admit, 
surpass  what  he  finds  at  home  in  England,  in  similar  towns  and 
among  the  same  classes." — P.  316. 

We  have  here  abundant  evidence  of  the  beneficial  effect  of 
local  action,  as  compared  with  centralization.  Instead  of  having 
great  establishments  in  Copenhagen,  and  no  local  schools,  or  news 
papers,  there  is  everywhere  provision  for  education,  and  evidence 
that  the  people  avail  themselves  of  it.  Their  tastes  are  cultivated, 
and  becoming  more  so  from  day  to  day ;  and  thus  do  they  present 
a  striking  contrast  with  the  picture  furnished  by  the  opposite  shore 


346  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

of  the  German  Ocean,  and  for  the  reason  that  there  the  system  is 
based  on  the  idea  of  cheapening  labour  at  home  and  underworking 
the  labourer  abroad.  The  windows  of  the  poorest  houses,  says  Mr. 
Laing — 

"  Rarely  want  a  bit  of  ornamental  drapery,  and  are  always  decked  . 
with  flowers  and  plants  in  flower-pots.  The  people  have  a  passion  for 
flowers.  The  peasant  girl  and  village  beau  are  adorned  with  bouquets 
of  the  finest  of  ordinary  flowers  ;  and  in  the  town  you  see  people  buy 
ing  flowers  who  with  us,  in  the  same  station,  would  think  it  extrava 
gance.  The  soil  and  climate  favour  this  taste.  In  no  part  of  Europe 
are  the  ordinary  garden-flowers  produced  in  such  abundance  and  luxu 
riance  as  in  Holstein  and  Sleswick." — P.  50. 

The  people  have  everywhere  "  leisure  to  be  happy,  amused-,  and 
educated,"*  and,  as  a  consequence,  the  sale  of  books  is  large.  The 
number  of  circulating  libraries  is  no  less  than  six  hundred,^  and 
their  demands  give 

"  More  impulse  to  literary  activity  than  appears  in  Edinburgh, 
where  literature  is  rather  passive  than  active,  and  what  is  produced 
worth  publishing  is  generally  sent  to  the  London  market.  This  is  the 
reason  why  a  greater  number  of  publications  appear  in  the  course  of 
the  year  in  Copenhagen  than  in  Edinburgh."  *  *  *  "  The  trans 
mission  of  books  and  other  small  parcels  by  post,  which  we  think  a 
great  improvement,  as  it  unquestionably  is,  and  peculiar  to  our  Eng 
lish  post-office  arrangement,  is  of  old  standing  in  Denmark,  and  is  of 
great  advantage  for  the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  and  of  great  conveni 
ence  to  the  people." — Pp.  373,  374. 

The  material  and  intellectual  condition  of  this  people  is  declared 
by  Mr.  Laing — and  he  is  an  experienced  and  most  observant  tra 
veller — to  be  higher  than  that  of  any  other  in  Europe  ;|  while 
Mr.  Kay,  also  very  high  authority,  places  the  people  of  England 
among  the  most  ignorant  and  helpless  of  those  of  Europe.  The 
Danes  consume  more  food  for  the  mind 

"  Than  the  Scotch ;  have  more  daily  and  weekly  newspapers,  and 
other  periodical  works,  in  their  metropolis  and  in  their  country  towns, 
and  publish  more  translated  and  original  works ;  have  more  public 
libraries,  larger  libraries,  and  libraries  more  easily  accessible  to  per 
sons  of  all  classes,  not  only  in  Copenhagen,  but  in  all  provincial  and 
country  towns ;  have  more  small  circulating  libraries,  book-clubs,  mu 
sical  associations,  theatres  and  theatrical  associations,  and  original 
dramatic  compositions  ;  more  museums,  galleries,  collections  of  statues, 

*  Denmark  and  the  Duchies,  366.  f  Ibid.  394.  J  Ibid.  388. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  347 

paintings,  antiquities,  and  objects  gratifying  to  the  tastes  of  a  refined 
and  intellectual  people,  and  open  equally  to  all  classes,  than  the  peo 
ple  of  Scotland  can  produce  in  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land." — 
P.  390. 

High  moral  condition  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  an  elevated 
material  and  intellectual  one ;  and  therefore  it  is  that  we  find  the 
Dane  distinguished  for  kindness,  urbanity,  and  regard  for  others,* 
and  this  is  found  in  all  portions  of  society.  In  visiting  the  Museum 
of  Northern  Antiquities,  which  is  open  to  the  public,  free  of  charge, 
on  certain  days — 

"  The  visitors  are  not  left  to  gape  in  ignorance  at  what  they  see. 
Professors  of  the  highest  attainments  in  antiquarian  science — Profes 
sor  Thomson,  M.  Worsaae,  and  others — men  who,  in  fact,  have  created 
a  science  out  of  an  undigested  mass  of  relics,  curiosities,  and  specimens 
of  the  arts  in  the  early  ages — go  round  with  groups  of  the  visitors,  and 
explain  equally  to  all,  high  and  low,  with  the  greatest  zeal,  intelligence, 
and  affability,  the  uses  of  the  articles  exhibited,  the  state  of  the  arts  in 
the  ages  in  which  they  were  used,  the  gradual  progress  of  mankind 
from  shells,  stones,  and  bones  to  bronze  and  iron,  as  the  materials  for 
tools,  ornaments,  and  weapons,  and  the  conclusions  made,  and  the 
grounds  and  reasons  for  making  them,  in  their  antiquarian  researches. 
They  deliver,  in  fact,  an  extempore  lecture,  intelligible  to  the  peasant 
and  instructive  to  the  philosopher/' — P.  399. 

In  place  of  the  wide  gulf  that  divides  the  two  great  portions  of 
English  society,  we  find  here  great  equality  of  social  intercourse, 
and 

"  It  seems  not  to  be  condescension  merely  on  one  side,  and  grateful 
respect  for  being  noticed  at  all  on  the  other,  but  a  feeling  of  independ 
ence  and  mutual  respect  between  individuals  of  the  most  different  sta 
tions  and  classes.  This  may  be  accounted  for  from  wealth  not  being 
so  all-important  as  in  our  social  state ;  its  influence  in  society  is  less 
where  the  majority  are  merely  occupied  in  living  agreeably  on  what 
they  have,  without  motive  or  desire  to  have  more." — P.  423. 

How  strikingly  does  the  following  contrast  with  the  description 
of  London,  and  its  hundred  thousand  people  without  a  place  to  lay 
theii  heads  i — 

"  The  streets  are  but  poorly  lighted,  gas  is  not  yet  introduced,  and 
the  police  is  an  invisible  force ;  yet  one  may  walk  at  all  hours  through 
this  town  without  seeing  a  disorderly  person,  a  man  in  liquor  unable 


*  Denmark  and  the  Duchies,  365 


348  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

to  take  care  of  himself,  or  a  female  street-walker.  Every  one  appears 
to  have  a  home  and  bed  of  some  kind,  and  the  houseless  are  unknown 
as  a  class." — P.  394. 

Why  this  is  so  is,  that,  because  of  the  growing  improvement  in 
the  condition  of  the  people,  the  land  is  daily  increasing  in  value, 
and  is  becoming  divided,  and  men  are  attracted  from  the  city  to 
the  land  and  the  smaller  towns — directly  the  reverse  of  what  is 
observed  in  England.  "  There  is,"  says  Mr.  Laing — 

"  No  such  influx,  as  in  our  large  towns,  of  operatives  in  every  trade, 
who,  coming  from  the  country  to  better  their  condition,  are  by  far  too 
numerous  for  the  demand,  must  take  work  at  lower  and  lower  wages 
to  keep  themselves  from  starving,  and  who  reduce  their  fellow-crafts 
men  and  themselves  to  equal  misery.  Employment  is  more  fixed  and 
stationary  for  the  employed  and  the  employers.  There  is  no  foreign 
trade  or  home  consumption  to  occasion  great  and  sudden  activity  and 
expansion  in  manufactures,  and  equally  great  and  sudden  stagnation 
and  collapse."— P.  394. 

"  Drunkenness  has  almost,"  we  are  told,  "  disappeared  from  the 
Danish  character,"  and  it  is 

"  The  education  of  the  tastes  for  more  refined  amusements  than  the 
counter  of  the  gin-palace  or  the  back  parlour  of  the  whisky-shop  afford, 
that  has  superseded  the  craving  for  the  excitement  of  spirituous  liquor. 
The  tea-gardens,  concert-rooms,  ball-rooms,  theatres,  skittle-grounds, 
all  frequented  indiscriminately  by  the  highest  and  the  lowest  classes, 
have  been  the  schools  of  useful  knowledge  that  have  imparted  to  the 
lowest  class  something  of  the  manners  and  habits  of  the  highest,  and 
have  eradicated  drunkenness  and  brutality,  in  ordinary  intercourse, 
from  the  character  of  the  labouring  people." — P.  396. 

Denmark  is,  says  this  high  authority,  "a  living  evidence  of  the 
falsity  of  the  theory  that  population  increases  more  rapidly  than 
subsistence  where  the  land  of  the  country  is'  held  by  small  working 
proprietors  ;"*  and  she  is  a  living  evidence,  too,  of  the  falsity  of 
the  theory  that  men  commence  with  the  cultivation  of  the  most 
productive  soils,  and  find  themselves,  as  wealth  and  population  in 
crease,  forced  to  resort  to  poorer  ones,  with  diminished  return  to 
labour.  Why  she  is  enabled  to  afford  such  conclusive  evidence  of 
this  is,  that  she  pursues  a  policy  tending  to  permit  her  people  to 
have  that  real  free  trade  which  consists  in  having  the  power  to 

*  Denmark  and  the  Duchies,  294. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN..  349 

• 
choose  between  the  foreign  and  domestic  markets — a  power,  the 

exercise  of  which  is  denied  to  India  and  Ireland,  Portugal  and 
Turkey.  She  desires  to  exercise  control  over  her  own  movements, 
and  not  over  those  of  others ;  and  therefore  it  is  that  her  people 
become  from  day  to  day  more  free,  and  her  land  from  day  to  day 
more  valuable. 

Turkey  is  the  paradise  of  the  system  commonly  known  by  the 
name  of  free  trade — that  system  under  which  the  artisan  is  not  per 
mitted  to  take  his  place  by  the  side  of  the  producer  of  silk  and 
cotton — and  the  consequence  is  seen  in  the  growing  depopulation 
of  the  country,  the  increasing  poverty  and  slavery  of  its  people,  the 
worthlessness  of  its  land,  and  in  the  weakness  of  its  government. 
Denmark,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  paradise  of  the  system  supposed 
to  be  opposed  to  free  trade — that  system  under  which  the  artisau 
and  the  farmer  are  permitted  to  combine  their  efforts — and  the 
consequence  is  seen  in  the  increase  of  population,  in  the  growth  of 
wealth  and  freedom,  in  the  growing  value  of  land,  in  the  increas 
ing  tendency  to  equality,  and  in  the  strength  of  its  government,  as 
exhibited  in  its  resistance  of  the  whole  power  of  Northern  Germany 
during  the  late  Schleswig-Holstein  war,  and  as  afterward  ex 
hibited  toward  those  of  its  own  subjects  who  had  aided  in  bringing 
on  the  war.  "  It  is  to  the  honour/'  says  Mr.  Laing* — 

"  Of  the  Danish  king  and  government,  and  it  is  a  striking  example 
of  the  different  progress  of  civilization  in  the  North  and  in  the  South  of 
Europe,  that  during  the  three  years  this  insurrection  lasted,  and  now 
that  it  is  quelled,  not  one  individual  has  been  tried  and  put  to  death, 
or  in  any  way  punished  for  a  civil  or  political  offence  by  sentence  of 
a  court-martial,  or  of  any  other  than  the  ordinary  courts  of  justice ; 
not  one  life  has  been  taken  but  in  the  field  of  battle,  and  by  the  chance 
of  war.  Banishment  for  life  has  been  the  highest  punishment  inflicted 
upon  traitors  who,  as  military  officers  deserting  their  colours,  breaking 
their  oaths  of  fidelity,  and  giving  up  important  trusts  to  the  enemy, 
would  have  been  tried  by  court-martial  and  shot  in  any  other  country. 
Civil  functionaries  who  had  abused  their  official  power,  and  turned  it 
against  the  government,  were  simply  dismissed." 

These  facts  contrast  strikingly  with  those  recently  presented  to 
view  by  Irish  history.  Ireland  had  no  friends  in  her  recent  at- 

*  Denmark  and  the  Duchies,  269. 
30 


350  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

tempt  at  change  of  government.  Her  leaders  had  not  even  at 
tempted  to  call  in  the  aid  of  other  nations.  They  stood  alone,  and 
yet  the  English  government  deemed  it  necessary  to  place  them  in 
an  island  at  a  distance  of  many  thousand  miles,  and  to  keep  them 
there  confined.  Denmark,  on  the  contrary,  was  surrounded  by 
enemies  close  at  hand — enemies  that  needed  no  ships  for  the  inva 
sion  of  her  territory — and  yet  she  contented  herself  with  simple 
banishment.  The  policy  of  the  former  looks  abroad,  and  therefore 
is  it  weak  at  home.  That  of  the  latter  looks  homeward,  and  there 
fore  is  it  that  at  home  she  is  strong;  small  as  she  is,  compared 
with  other  powers,  in  her  territory  and  in  the  number  of  her  popu 
lation. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

HOW   FREEDOM    GROWS   IN    SPAIN   AND    IN   BELGIUM. 

SPAIN  expelled  the  industrious  portion  of  her  population,  and 
almost  at  the  same  time  acquired  colonies  of  vast  extent,  to  which 
she  looked  for  revenue.  Centralization  here  was  almost  perfect — 
and  here,  as  everywhere,  it  has  been  accompanied  by  poverty  and 
weakness.  With  difficulty  she  has  been  enabled  to  defend  her 
rights  on  her  own  soil,  and  she  has  found  it  quite  impossible  to 
maintain  her  power  abroad,  and  for  the  reason  that  her  system 
tended  to  the  impoverishment  of  her  people  and  the  destruction 
of  the  value  of  labour  and  land.  Her  history  tends  throughout  to 
show  that  nations  which  desire  respect  for  their  own  rights,  must 
learn  to  respect  those  of  others. 

The  policy  of  Spain  has  been  unfavourable  to  commerce,  internal 
and  external.  Exchanges  at  home  were  burdened  with  heavy  taxes, 
and  the  raw  materials  of  manufacture,  even  those  produced  at 
home,  were  so  heavily  taxed  on  their  passage  from  the  place  of 
production  to  that  of  consumption,  that  manufactures  could  not 
prosper.  The  great  middle  class  of  artisans  could  therefore  scarcely 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  351 

be  found,  and  the  scattered  agriculturists  were  thus  deprived  of 
their  aid  in  the  effort  to  establish  or  maintain  their  freedom. 
Towns  and  cities  decayed,  and  land  became  more  and  more  consoli 
dated  in  the  hands  of  great  noblemen  on  one  side  and  the  church 
on  the  other,  and  talent  found  no  field  for  its  exercise,  except  in 
the  service  of  the  church  or  the  state. 

While  thus  destroying  internal  trade  by  taxation,  efforts  were 
made  to  build  it  up  by  aid  of  restrictions  on  external  trade  ;  but 
the  very  fact  that  the  former  was  destroyed,  made  it  necessary  for 
thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  persons  to  endeavour  to  earn 
wages  in  the  smuggling  of  foreign  merchandise,  and  the  country 
was  filled  with  men  ever  ready  to  violate  the  law,  because  of  the. 
cheapness  of  labour.  The  laws  restraining  the  import  of  foreign 
merchandise  were  easily  violated,  because  its  bulk  was  small  and 
its  value  great;  whereas  those  interfering  with  the  transit  of  raw 
materials  were  easily  enforced,  because  the  bulk  was  great  and  their 
value  small;  and  therefore  the  whole  system  tended  effectually  to 
prevent  the  artisan  from  taking  his  place  by  the  side  of  the  grower 
of  food  and  wool ;  and  hence  the  depopulation,  poverty,  and  weak 
ness  of  this  once  rich  and  powerful  country. 

Fortunately  for  her,  however,  the  day  arrived  when  she  was  to 
lose  her  colonies,  and  find  herself  compelled  to  follow  the  advice  of 
Adam  Smith,  and  look  to  home  for  revenue ;  and  almost  from  that 
date  to  the  present,  notwithstanding  foreign  invasions,  civil  wars, 
and  revolutions,  her  course  has  been  onward,  and  with  each  suc 
ceeding  year  there  has  been  a  greater  tendency  toward  diversifica 
tion  of  employment,  the  growth  of  towns  and  other  places  of  local 
exchange,  the  improvement  of  agriculture,  the  strengthening  of 
the  people  in  their  relations  with  the  government,  and  the  strength 
ening  of  the  nation  as  regards  the  other  nations  of  the  earth. 

Among  the  earliest  measures  tending  toward  the  emancipation 
of  the  people  of  Germany,  Russia,  and  Denmark,  was,  as  has  been 
seen,  the  removal  of  restrictions  upon  the  trade  in  land,  the  great 
machine  of  production.  So,  too,  was  it  in  Spain.  According  to  a 
return  made  to  the  Cortes  of  Cadiz,  out  of  sixty  millions  of  acres 
then  in  cultivation,  only  twenty  millions  were  held  by  the  men 


352  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

who  cultivated  them,  while  thirty  were  in  the  hands  of  great  nobles, 
and  ten  were  held  by  the  church.  Under  a  decree  of  seculariza 
tion,  a  large  portion  of  the  latter  has  been  sold,  and  the  result  is 
seen  in  the  fact  that  the  number  of  owners  cultivating  their  own 
properties  has  risen  from  273,760  to  546,100 ;  and  the  number  of 
forms  from  403,408  to  1,095,200.* 

A  further  step  toward  freedom  and  the  establishment  of  equal 
rights,  is  found  in  the  abolition  of  a  great  variety  of  small  and  vexa 
tious  taxes,  substituting  therefor  a  land-tax,  payable  alike  by  the 
small  and  the  great  proprietor;  and  in  the  abolition  of  internal 
duties  on  the  exchange  of  the  raw  materials  of  manufacture.  With 
each  of  these  we  find  increasing  tendency  toward  the  establishment 
of  that  division  of  employment  which  gives  value  to  labour  and 
land.  From  1841  to  1846,  the  number  of  spindles  in  Catalonia 
has  grown  from  62,000  to  121,000,  and  that  of  looms  from 
30,000  to  45,000,  while  cotton  factories  had  been  put  in  operation 
in  various  other  parts  of  the  kingdom. f  Still  later,  numerous  others 
have  been  started,  and  a  traveller  of  the  past  year  informs  us  that 
the  province  of  Granada  now  bids  fair  to  rival  Catalonia  in  her 
manufactures. J  In  1841,  the  total  value  of  the  products  of  the 
cotton  manufacture  was  estimated  at  about  four  millions  of  dollars, 
biH  in  1846  it  had  risen  to  more  than  six  and  a  half  millions.  The 
woollen  manufacture  had  also  rapidly  increased,  and  this  furnishes 
employment  at  numerous  places  throughout  the  kingdom,  one  of 
which,  Alcoy,  is  specially  referred  to  by  M.  Block, §  as  situated 
among  the  mountains  which  separate  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Va 
lencia  and  Murcia,  and  as  having  no  less  than  24,000  spindles, 
and  12,000  men,  in  addition  to  a  great  number  of  women  and 
children,  engaged  in  this  branch  of  manufacture. 

In  regard  to  the  progress  of  manufactures  generally,  the  follow 
ing  statement,  furnished  by  a  recent  American  traveller  to  wborr 
we  are  indebted  for  an  excellent  work  on  Spain,  furnishes  muc) 


L'Espagne  en  1850,  par  M.  Maurice  Block,  145.  f  Ibid.  pp.  157-159. 

Bayard  Taylor,  in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune. 
L'Espagne  en  1850,  160. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  353 

information,  and  cannot  be  read  without  interest  by  all  those  who 
derive  pleasure  from  witnessing  advance  in  civilization.* 

"  Of  late  years  there  has  been  a  considerable  effort  to  extend  and 
improve  the  production  and  manufacture  of  silk,  and  the  result  has 
been  very  favourable.  The  silkworm,  formerly  confined,  in  a  great 
degree,  to  Valencia  and  Murcia,  is  now  an  article  of  material  import 
ance  in  the  wealth  of  the  two  Castiles,  Rioja,  and  Aragon.  The  silk 
fabrics  of  Talavera,  Valencia,  and  Barcelona  are  many  of  them  admi 
rably  wrought,  and  are  sold  at  rates  which  appear  very  moderate.  I 
had  particular  occasion  to  note  the  cheapness  of  the  damasks  which 
are  sold  in  Madrid  from  the  native  looms.  It  is  not  easy  to  imagine 
any  thing  more  magnificent,  of  their  kind.  The  woollen  cloths,  too, 
of  home  manufacture,  are,  some  of  them,  very  admirable,  and  the 
coarser  kinds  supply,  I  believe,  a  considerable  part  of  the  national 
demand.  In  cheapness  I  have  never  seen  them  surpassed.  The  finer 
qualities  do  not  bear  so  favourable  a  comparison  with  the  foreign 
article ;  but  those  who  were  familiar  with  the  subject  informed  me 
that  their  recent  improvement  had  been  very  decided.  Many  laudable 
efforts  have  been  made  to  render  the  supply  of  wool  more  abundant, 
and  to  improve  its  quality,  and  there  has  been  a  considerable  importa 
tion  of  foreign  sheep,  with  a  view  to  crossing  on  the  native  breeds. 
The  sheep-rearing  interest  is  so  very  large  in  Spain,  that  any  material 
improvement  in  the  quality  of  the  wool  must  add  greatly  to  the  national 
wealth,  as  well  as  to  the  importance  of  the  woollen  manufacture  and 
its  ability  to  encounter  foreign  competition. 

"  In  the  general  movement  toward  an  increased  and  more  valuable 
production  of  the  raw  material  for  manufacture,  the  flax  of  Leon  and 
Galicia  and  the  hemp  of  Granada  have  not  been  forgotten.  But  the 
article  in  which  the  most  decided  and  important  progress  has  been 
made,  is  the  great  staple,  iron.  In  1832,  the  iron-manufacture  of 
Spain  was  at  so  low  an  ebb,  that  it  was  necessary  to  import  from  Eng 
land  the  large  lamp-posts  of  cast  metal,  which  adorn  the  Plaza  de 
Armas  of  the  Palace.  They  bear  the  London  mark,  and  tell  their  own 
story.  A  luxury  for  the  in-doors'  enjoyment  or  personal  ostentation 
of  the  monarch,  would  of  course  have  been  imported  from  any  quarter, 
without  regard  to  appearances.  But  a  monument  of  national  depend 
ence  upon  foreign  industry  would  hardly  have  been  erected  upon  such 
a  spot,  had  there  been  a  possibility  of  avoiding  it  by  any  domestic 
recourse.  In  1850  the  state  of  things  had  so  far  changed,  that  there 
wTere  in  the  kingdom  twenty-five  founderies,  eight  furnaces  of  the  first 
class,  with  founderies  attached,  and  twenty-five  iron-factories,  all 
prosperously  and  constantly  occupied.  The  specimens  of  work  from 
these  establishments,  which  are  to  be  seen  in  the  capital  and  the  chief 
cities  of  the  provinces,  are  such  as  to  render  the  independence  and 
prospective  success  of  the  nation  in  this  particular  no  longer  matters 
of  question.  In  the  beginning  of  1850,  the  Marquis  of  Molins,  then 
Minister  of  Marine  Affairs,  upon  the  petition  of  the  uron-manufac- 

*  Spain,  her  Institutions,  her  Politics,  and  her  Public  Men,  by  S.  T,  Wallis,  341. 

30* 


354  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

turers,  directed  inquiries  to  be  made,  by  a  competent  board,  into  the 
quality  of  the  native  iron,  and  the  extent  to  which  the  home  manufac 
ture  might  be  relied  on  for  the  purposes  of  naval  construction.  The 
result  was  so  satisfactory,  that  in  March  of  the  same  year  a  royal 
order  was  issued  from  the  department,  directing  all  future  contracts 
to  be  made  with  the  domestic  establishments.  This,  indeed,  has  been 
the  case  since  1845,  at  the  arsenal  of  Ferrol,  which  has  been  supplied 
altogether  from  the  iron-works  of  Biscay.  The  government,  however, 
had  determined  for  the  future  to  be  chiefly  its  own  purveyor,  and 
national  founderies  at  Ferrol  and  Trubia,  constructed  without  regard 
to  expense,  were  about  to  go  into  operation  when  the  royal  order  was 
published." 

A  necessary  consequence  of  all  these  steps  toward  freedom  and 
association  has  been  great  agricultural  improvement.  "  The  im 
poverished  industry  and  neglected  agriculture  of  the  land/'  says 
Mr.  Wallis— 

"  Have  received  an  accession  of  vigorous  labour,  no  longer  tempted 
into  sloth  by  the  seductions  of  a  privileged  and  sensual  life.  In  the  cities 
and  larger  towns  the  convent  buildings  have  been  displaced,  to  make 
room  for  private  dwellings  of  more  or  less  convenience  and  elegance, 
or  have  been  appropriated  as  public  offices  or  repositories  of  works  of 
art.  The  extensive  grounds  which  were  monopolized  by  some  of  the 
orders,  in  the  crowded  midst  of  populous  quarters,  have  been  converted 
into  walks  or  squares,  dedicated  to  the  public  health  and  recreation. 
In  a  word,  what  was  intended  in  the  beginning  as  the  object  of  mo 
nastic  endowments,  has  been  to  some  extent  realized.  What  was 
meant  for  the  good  of  all,  though  intrusted  to  a  few,  has  been  taken 
from  the  few  who  used  it  as  their  own,  and  distributed,  rudely  it  may 
be,  but  yet  effectually,  among  the  many  who  were  entitled  to  and 
needed  it."— P.  276. 

At  the  close  of  the  last  century,  the  value  of  agricultural  pro 
ducts  was  officially  returned  at  5143  millions  of  reals,  or  about 
260  millions  of  dollars.  In  1829,  a  similar  return  made  it  some 
what  less,  or  about  232  millions,  but  since  that  time  the  increase 
has  been  so  rapid,  that  it  is  now  returned  at  nearly  450  millions 
of  dollars.* 

Twenty  years  since,  the  means  of  transporting  produce  through 
out  the  country  were  so  bad  that  famine  might  prevail  in  Anda 
lusia,  and  men  might  perish  there  in  thousands,  while  grain  wasted 
on  the  fields  of  Castile,  because  the  silos  of  the  latter  no  longer 

*  The  exact  amount  given  by  M.  Block  is  2,194,269,000  francs,  but  he  does 
not  state  in  what  year  the  return  was  made. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  355 

afforded  room  to  store  it.    Even  now,  "  in  some  districts,  it  is  a 
familiar  fact, 

"  That  the  wine  of  one  vintage  has  to  he  emptied,  in  waste,  in  order 
to  furnish  skins  for  the  wine  of  the  next — the  difficulty  and  cost  of 
transportation  to  market  being  such  as  utterly  to  preclude  the  pro 
ducer  from  attempting  a  more  profitable  disposition  of  it.  Staples  of 
the  most  absolute  and  uniform  necessity — wheat,  for  instance — are  at 
prices  absurdly  different  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom  ;  the  prox 
imity  to  market  being  such  as  to  give  them  their  current  value  in  one 
quarter,  while  in  another  they  are  perhaps  rotting  in  their  places  of 
deposite,  without  the  hope  of  a  demand.  Until  such  a  state  of  things 
shall  have  been  cured,  it  will  be  useless  to  improve  the  soil,  or  stimu 
late  production  in  the  secluded  districts ;  and  of  course  every  circum 
stance  which  wears  the  promise  of  such  cure  must  enter  into  the 
calculations  of  the  future,  and  avail  in  them  according  to  its  proba 
bilities."—  Wallis,  P.  328. 

We  see  thus  that  here,  as  everywhere,  the  power  to  make  roads 
is  least  where  the  necessity  for  them  is  greatest.  Had  the  farmers 
of  Castile  a  near  market  in  which  their  wheat  could  be  combined 
with  the  wool  that  is  shorn  in  their  immediate  neighbourhood, 
they  could  export  cloth,  and  that  could  travel  even  on  bad  roads. 
As  it  is,  they  have  to  export  both  wheat  and  wool,  and  on  such 
roads,  whereas  if  the  artisan  could,  in  accordance  with  the  doc 
trines  of  Adam  Smith,  everywhere  take  his  place  by  the  side  of 
the  ploughman  and  the  shepherd;  and  if  women  and  children 
could  thus  everywhere  be  enabled  to  find  other  employment  than 
in  field  labour,  towns  would  grow  up,  and  men  would  become  rich 
and  strong,  and  roads  could  be  made  without  difficulty.  Even  now, 
however,  there  is  a  rapidly  increasing  tendency  toward  the  con 
struction  of  railroads,  and  the  completion  and  enlargement  of 
canals,  and  not  a  doubt  can  be  entertained  that  in  a  few  years  the 
modes  of  intercourse  will  be  so  improved  as  to  put  an  end  to  the 
enormous  differences  in  prices  here  observed.*  Those  differences 
are,  however,  precisely  similar  to  those  now  regarded  as  desirable  by 

*  By  an  official  document  published  in  1849,  it  appears  that  while  wheat  sold 
in  Barcelona  and  Tarragona  (places  of  consumption)  at  an  average  of  more  than 
25  francs,  the  price  at  Segovia,  in  Old  Castile,  (a  place  of  production,)  not 
300  miles  distant,  was  less  than  10  francs  for  the  same  quantity. — L'Espagne 
en  1850,  131. 


356 

English  writers  who  find  compensation  for  the  loss  of  men,  "  in 
the  great  stimulus  that  our  extensive  emigration  will  give  to  every 
branch  of  the  shipping  interest."  *  The  nearer  the  place  of  ex 
change  the  fewer  ships  and  seamen  are  needed,  and  the  richer  must 
grow  the  producer  and  the  consumer,  because  the  number  of  persons 
among  whom  the  total  product  is  to  be  divided  is  then  the  least. 

With  increased  power  of  association  there  is  a  steady  improve 
ment  in  the  provision  for  education.  Half  a  century  since,  the 
whole  number  of  students  at  all  the  educational  establishments  in 
the  kingdom  was  but  30,000,f  and  it  had  not  materially  varied  in 
1835;  whereas  the  number  now  in  the  public  schools  alone,  for 
the  support  of  which  there  is  an  annual  appropriation  of  $750,000, 
is  above  700,000,  or  one  to  17  of  the  population.  The  primary  and 
other  schools  reach  the  number  of  16,000;  and  besides  these  and 
the  universities,  there  are  numerous  other  institutions  devoted  to 
particular  branches  of  education,  some  of  which  are  provided  for 
by  government,  and  others  by  public  bodies  or  private  subscrip 
tion.  "  No  impediment,"  says  Mr.  Wallis — 

"  Is  thrown  by  law  in  the  way  of  private  teachers — except  that  they 
are  required  to  produce  certain  certificates  of  good  character  and  con 
duct,  and  of  having  gone  through  a  prescribed  course,  which  is  more 
or  less  extensive,  in  proportion  to  the  rank  of  the  institution  they  may 
desire  to  open." 

As  a  necessary  consequence  of  these  changes  there  has  been  a 
great  increase  in  the  value  of  land,  and  of  real  estate  generally. 
Mr.  Wallis  states  that  the  church  property  has  t{  commanded  an 
average  of  nearly  double  the  price  at  which  it  was  officially  assessed, 
according  to  the  standard  of  value  at  the  time  of  its  seizure,"  and 
we  need  desire  no  better  evidence  that  man  is  tending  gradually 
toward  freedom  than  is  to  be  found  in  this  single  fact. 

It  might  be  supposed,  that  with  the  increased  tendency  to  con 
vert  at  home  the  raw  products  of  the  earth,  there  would  be  a 
diminution  of  foreign  commerce;  but  directly  the  reverse  is  the 
case.  In  the  three  years,  from  1846  to  1849,  the  import  of  raw 

*  North  British  Review,  Nov.  1852,  art.  The  Modern  Exodus. 
f  M.  de  Jonnes,  quoted  by  Mr.  Wallis,  p.  295. 


DOMESTIC  AND   FOREIGN.  357 

cotton  rose  from  16,000,000  to  27,000,000  of  pounds;  that  of 
yarn  from  5,200,000  to  6,800,000  pounds;  and  that  of  bar-iron 
from  5,400,000  to  more  than  8,000,000;  and  the  general  move 
ments  of  exports  and  imports  for  the  last  twenty-four  years,  as 
given  by  M.  Block,  (p.  18,)  has  been  as  follows : — 

Imports,  in  francs.  Exports,  in  francs. 

1827 95,235,000 71,912,000 

1843 114,325,000 82,279,000 

1846 157,513,000 129,106,000 

And  to  this  may  be  added,  as  since  published  by  the  govern 
ment,  the  account  for 

1851 171,912,000 124,377,000 

With  each  step  in  the  direction  of  bringing  the  consumer  and 
the  producer  to  take  their  places  by  the  side  of  each  other,  the 
people  acquire  power  to  protect  themselves,  as  is  seen  in  the  free 
dom  of  debate  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  and  in  the  extent  to 
which  those  debates,  with  their  comments  thereon,  are  made  known 
throughout  the  kingdom  by  the  writers  of  a  newspaper  press  that, 
although  restricted,  has  been  well  characterized  as  "  fearless  and 
plain  speaking."  In  1826,  Madrid  had  but  two  daily  newspapers, 
both  of  them  most  contemptible  in  character.  In  February,  1850, 
there  were  thirteen,  with  an  aggregate  circulation  of  35,000  copies; 
and  yet  Madrid  has  no  commerce,  and  can  furnish  little  advertising 
for  their  support.* 

With  the  increase  of  production  and  of  wealth,  and  with  the 
growth  of  the  power  of  association,  and  of  intelligence  among  the 
people,  the  government  gradually  acquires  strength  in  the  com 
munity  of  nations,  and  power  to  enforce  its  laws,  as  is  here  shown 
in  the  large  decline  that  has  taken  place  in  the  English  exports  to 
Portugal  and  Gibraltar,  heretofore  the  great  smuggling  depots  for 
English  manufactures,")*  as  compared  with  those  to  Spain  direct : 

*  Wallis's  Spain,  chap.  ix. 

f  It  is  a  striking  evidence  of  the  injurious  moral  effect  produced  by  the  system 
which  looks  to  the  conversion  of  all  the  other  nations  of  the  world  into  mere  farmers 
and  planters,  that  Mr.  Macgregor,  in  his  work  of  Commercial  Statistics,  says,  ip 


358  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

Portugal.  Gibraltar.  Spain. 

In  1839 £1,217,082 £1,433,932 £262,231 

1852 1,048,356 481,286 1,015,493 

The  system  that  looks  to  consolidation  of  the  land  tends  toward 
inequality,  and  that  such  has  been,  and  is,  the  tendency  of  that  of 
England,  wherever  fully  carried  out,  has  been  shown.  Those  of 
Germany,  Russia,  and  Denmark  tend  in  the  opposite  direction, 
and  under  them  men  are  becoming  daily  more  independent  in  their 
action,  and  consequently  more  and  more  kindly  and  respectful  in 
their  treatment  of  each  other.  Such,  likewise,  is  the  case  in  Spain. 
"  The  Spaniard/'  says  Mr.  Wallis— 

""Has  a  sense  of  equality,  which  blesses  him  who  gives  as  well  as 
him  who  takes.  If  he  requires  the  concession  from  others,  he  demands 
it  chiefly  and  emphatically  through  the  concessions  which  he  makes 
to  them.  There  is  so  much  self-respect  involved  in  his  respect  to 
others,  and  in  his  manifestation  of  it,  that  reciprocity  is  unavoidable. 
To  this,  and  this  mainly,  is  attributable  the  high,  courteous  bearing, 
which  is  conspicuous  in  all  the  people,  and  which  renders  the  personal 
intercourse  of  the  respective  classes  and  conditions  less  marked  by 
strong  and  invidious  distinctions,  than  in  any  other  nation  with  whose 
manners  and  customs  I  am  familiar.  It  is  this,  perhaps,  more  than 
any  other  circumstance,  which  has  tempered  and  made  sufferable  the 
oppression  of  unequal  and  despotic  institutions,  illustrating  'the  ad 
vantage  to  which/  in  the  words  of  a  philosophic  writer,  '  the  manners 
of  a  people  may  turn  the  most  unfavourable  position  and  the  worst 
laws.' "—P.  383. 

Again,  he  says — 

"  If  in  the  midst  of  the  very  kindness  which  made  him  at  home  upon 
the  briefest  acquaintance,  he  should  perceive  an  attentive  politeness, 
approaching  so  near  to  formality  as  now  and  then  to  embarrass  him, 
he  would  soon  be  brought  to  understand  and  admire  it  as  the  expres 
sion  of  habitual  consideration  for  the  feelings  of  others.  He  would 
value  it  the  more  when  he  learned  from  its  universality,  that  what  was 
elsewhere  chiefly  a  thing  of  manners  and  education,  was  there  a  genial 
instinct  developed  into  a  social  charity." — P.  207. 

The  "  popular  element  is  fully  at  work/'  and  it  requires,  says  the 
same  author,  but  a  comparison  of  the  present  with  the  past,  "  to 

speaking  of  the  Methuen  treaty,  "  we  do  not  deny  that  there  were  advantages 
in  having  a  market  for  our  woollens  in  Portugal,  especially  one,  of  which,  if  not 
the  principal,  was  the  means  afforded  of  sending  them  afterward  by  contraband 
into  Spain."-— Vol.  ii.  1122. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  359 

remove  all  doubts   of  the   present,   and  to  justify  the   happiest 
augury."     "  The  lotos  of  freedom  has,"  he  continues — 

"  Been  tasted,  and  it  cannot  readily  be  stricken  from  their  lips.  So 
long  as  the  more  important  guaranties  are  not  altogether  violated — so 
long  as  the  government  substantially  dedicates  itself  to  the  public 
good,  by  originating  and  fostering  schemes  of  public  usefulness,  it 
may  take  almost  any  liberties  with  forms  and  non-essentials.  Much 
further  it  will  not  be  permitted  to  go,  and  every  day  diminishes  the 
facility  with  which  it  may  go  even  thus  far.  Every  work  of  internal 
improvement,  which  brings  men  closer  together,  enabling  them  to 
compare  opinions  with  readiness  and  concentrate  strength  for  their 
maintenance ;  every  new  interest  that  is  built  up  ;  every  heavy  and 
permanent  investment  of  capital  or  industry ;  every  movement  that 
develops  and  diffuses  the  public  intelligence  and  energy,  is  a  bulwark 
more  or  less  formidable  against  reaction.  Nay,  every  circumstance 
that  makes  the  public  wiser,  richer,  or  better,  must  shorten  the  career 
of  arbitrary  rule.  The  compulsion,  which  was  and  still  is  a  necessary 
evil  for  the  preservation  of  peace,  must  be  withdrawn  when  peace 
becomes  an  instinct  as  well  as  a  necessity.  The  existence  of  a  strin 
gent  system  will  no  longer  be  acquiesced  in  when  the  people  shall 
have  grown  less  in  need  of  government,  and  better  able  to  direct  it  for 
themselves.  Thus,  in  their  season,  the  very  interests  which  shall  be 
consolidated  and  made  vigorous  by  forced  tranquillity  will  rise,  them 
selves,  into  the  mastery.  The  stream  of  power  as  it  rolls  peacefully 
along,  is  daily  strengthening  the  banks,  which  every  day,  though  im 
perceptibly,  encroach  on  it." — P.  381. 


BELGIUM. 

BELGIUM  is  a  country  with  four  and  a  half  millions  of  inhabit 
ants,  or  about  one-half  more  than  the  State  of  New  York.  It  is 
burdened  with  a  heavy  debt  assumed  at  the  period  of  its  separation 
from  Holland,  and  it  finds  itself  compelled  to  maintain  an  army 
that  is  large  in  proportion  to  its  population,  because  in  the  vicinity 
of  neighbours  who  have  at  all  times  shown  themselves  ready  to 
make  it  the  battle-ground  of  Europe.  In  no  country  of  Europe 
has  there  been  so  great  a  destruction  of  property  and  life,  and  yet 
in  none  has  there  been  so  great  a  tendency  toward  freedom ;  and 
for  the  reason  that  in  none  has  there  been  manifested  so  little  dis 
position  to  interfere  with  the  affairs  of  other  nations.  It  is  burdened 
now  with  a  taxation  amounting  to  about  twenty-three  millions  of 


360  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

dollars,  or  five  dollars  and  a  half  per  head ;  and  yet,  amid  all  the 
revolutions  and  attempts  at  revolution  by  which  the  peace  of  Europe 
is  disturbed,  we  hear  nothing  of  the  Belgians,  whose  course  is  as 
tranquil  as  it  was  before  the  days  of  1848 — and  this  is  a  conse 
quence  of  following  in  the  path  indicated  by  Adam  Smith. 

The  policy  of  Belgium  looks  more  homeward  than  that  of  any 
nation  of  Europe.  She  has  no  colonies,  and  she  seeks  none.  To 
a  greater  extent  than  almost  any  other  nation,  she  has  sought  to 
enable  her  farmers  to  have  local  places  of  exchange,  giving  value 
to  her  labour  and  her  land.  Where  these  exist,  men  are  certain  to 
become  free;  and  equally  certain  is  it  that  where  they  do  not  exist, 
freedom  must  be  a  plant  of  exceedingly  slow  growth,  even  where 
it  does  not  absolutely  perish  for  want  of  nourishment.  If  evidence 
be  desired  of  the  freedom  of  the  Belgians,  it  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  there  is  nowhere  to  be  seen,  as  we  are  on  all  hands  as 
sured,  a  more  contented,  virtuous,  and  generally  comfortable  popu 
lation  than  that  engaged  in  the  cultivation  of  her  fields.  The 
following  sketch  is  from  a  report  published  by  order  of  Parliament, 
and  cannot  fail  to  be  read  with  interest  by  those  who  desire  to  un 
derstand  how  it  is  that  the  dense  population  of  this  little  country 
is  enabled  to  draw  from  a  soil  naturally  indifferent  such  large 
returns,  while  the  Hindoo,  with  all  his  advantages  of  early  civiliza 
tion,  wealth,  and  population,  perishes  of  famine  or  flies  from  pes 
tilence,  leaving  behind  him,  uncultivated,  the  richest  soils,  and 
sells  himself  to  slavery  in  Cuba  : — 

"  The  farms  in  Belgium  rarely  exceed  one  hundred  acres.  The 
number  containing  fifty  acres  is  not  great;  those  of  thirty  or  twenty 
are  more  numerous,  but  the  number  of  holdings  of  from  five  to  ten  and 
twenty  acres  is  very  considerable. 

"  The  small  farms  of  from  five  to  ten  acres,  which  abound  in  many 
parts  of  Belgium,  closely  resemble  the  small  holdings  in  Ireland  ;  but 
the  small  Irish  cultivator  exists  in  a  state  of  miserable  privation  of 
the  common  comforts  and  conveniences  of  civilized  life,  while  the  Bel 
gian  peasant  farmer  enjoys  a  large  share  of  those  comforts.  The 
houses  of  the  small  cultivators  of  Belgium  are  generally  substantially 
built,  and  in  good  repair ;  they  have  commonly  a  sleeping  room  in  the 
attic,  and  closets  for  beds  connected  with  the  lower  apartment,  which 
is  convenient  in  size ;  a  small  cellarage  for  the  dairy,  and  store  for  the 
grain,  as  well  as  an  oven,  and  an  outhouse  for  the  potatoes,  with  a 
roomy  cattle-stall,  piggery,  and  poultry,  loft.  The  house  generally  con- 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  361 

tains  decent  furniture,  the  bedding  sufficient  in  quantity,  and  an  air  of 
comfort  pervades  the  establishment.  In  the  cow-house  the  cattle  are 
supplied  with  straw  for  bedding ;  the  dung  and  moisture  are  carefully 
collected  in  the  tank;  the  ditches  had  been  secured  to  collect  materials 
for  manure ;  the  dry  leaves,  potato-tops,  &c.  had  been  collected  in  a 
moist  ditch  to  undergo  the  process  of  fermentation,  and  heaps  of  com 
post  were  in  course  of  preparation.  The  premises  were  kept  in  neat 
and  compact  order,  and  a  scrupulous  attention  to  a  most  rigid  economy 
•was  everywhere  apparent.  The  family  were  decently  clad ;  none  of 
them  were  ragged  or  slovenly,  even  when  their  dress  consisted  of  the 
coarsest  material. 

"  In  the  greater  part  of  the  flat  country  of  Belgium  the  soil  is  light 
and  sandy,  and  easily  worked ;  but  its  productive  powers  are  certainly 
inferior  to  the  general  soil  of  Ireland,  and  the  climate  does  not  appear 
to  be  superior.  To  the  soil  and  climate,  therefore,  the  Belgian  does 
not  owe  his  superiority.  The  difference  is  to  be  found  in  the  system 
of  cultivation,  and  the  forethought  of  the  people.  The  cultivation  of 
small  farms  in  Belgium  differs  from  the  Irish :  1.  In  the  quantity  of 
stall-fed  stock  which  is  kept,  and  by  which  a  supply  of  manure  is  regu 
larly  secured  ;  2.  In  the  strict  attention  paid  to  the  collection  of  ma 
nure,  which  is  skilfully  husbanded ;  3.  By  the  adoption  of  rotations 
of  crop.  We  found  no  plough,  horse,  or  cart — only  a  spade,  fork, 
wheelbarrow,  and  handbarrow.  The  farmer  had  no  assistance  besides 
that  of  his  family.  The  whole  land  is  trenched  very  deep  with  the 
spade.  The  stock  consisted  of  a  couple  of  cows,  a  calf  or  two,  one  or 
two  pigs,  sometimes  a  goat  or  two,  and  some  poultry.  The  cows  are 
altogether  stall-fed,  on  straw,  turnips,  clover,  rye,  vetches,  carrots,  po 
tatoes,  and  a  kind  of  soup  made  by  boiling  up  the  potatoes,  peas,  beans, 
bran,  cut-hay,  &c.,  which,  given  warm,  is  said  to  be  very  wholesome, 
and  promotive  of  the  secretion  of  milk.  Near  distilleries  and  breweries 
grains  are  given. 

"  Some  small  farmers  agree  to  find  stall-room  and  straw  for  sheep, 
and  furnish  fodder  at  the  market  price,  for  the  dung.  The  dung  and 
moisture  are  collected  in  a  fosse  in  the  stable.  Lime  is  mingled  with 
the  scourings  of  the  ditches,  vegetable  garbage,  leaves,  &c.  On  six- 
acre  farms,  plots  are  appropriated  to  potatoes,  wheat,  barley,  clover, 
flax,  rye,  carrots,  turnips,  or  parsnips,  vetches,  and  rye,  as  green  food 
for  cattle.  The  flax  is  heckled  and  spun  by  the  wife  in  winter  ;  and 
three  weeks  at  the  loom  in  spring  weaves  up  all  the  thread.  In  some 
districts  every  size,  from  a  quarter  acre  to  six  acres,  is  found.  The 
former  holders  devoted  their  time  to  weaving.  As  far  as  I  could  learn, 
there  was  no  tendency  to  subdivision  of  the  small  holdings.  I  heard 
of  none  under  five  acres  held  by  the  class  of  peasant  farmers ;  and  six, 
seven,  or  eight  acres  is  the  more  common  size.  The  average  rent  is 
£0$.  an  acre.  Wages,  lOcZ.  a  day. 

"  A  small  occupier,  whose  farm  we  examined  near  Ghent,  paid  £9 
7*.  &d.  for  six  acres,  with  a  comfortable  house,  stabling,  and  other 
offices  attached,  all  very  good  of  their  kind — being  20s.  an  acre  for  the 
land,  and  £3  7s.  6cZ.  for  house  and  offices.  This  farmer  had  a  wife  and 
five  children,  and  appeared  to  live  in  much  comfort.  He  owed  little 
or  nothing." — Nicholls's  Report. 

31 


362  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

These  people  have  employment  for  every  hour  in  the  year,  and 
they  find  a  market  close  at  hand  for  every  thing  they  can  raise. 
They  are  not  forced  to  confine  themselves  to  cotton  or  sugar,  to 
bacco  or  wheat ;  nor  are  they  forced  to  waste  their  labour  in  carry 
ing  their  products  to  a  distance  so  great  that  no  manure  can  be 
returned.  From  this  country  there  .is  no  export  of  men,  women, 
and  children,  such  as  we  see  from  Ireland.  The  "  crowbar  bri-. 
gade"  is  here  unknown,  and  it  may  be  doubted  if  any  term  con 
veying  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  eviction"  is  to  be  found  in  their 
vocabulary.  With  a  surface  only  one-third  as  great  as  that  of  Ire 
land,  and  with  a  soil  naturally  far  inferior,  Belgium  supports  a  popu 
lation  almost  half  as  great  as  Ireland  has  ever  possessed ;  and  yet 
we  never  hear  of  the  cheap  Belgian  labour  inundating  the  neigh 
bouring  countries,  to  the  great  advantage  of  those  who  desire  to 
build  up  "  great  works"  like  those  of  Britain.  The  policy  of 
Belgium  looks  to  increasing  the  value  of  both  labour  and  land, 
whereas  that  of  England  looks  to  diminishing  the  value  of  both. 

With  every  advantage  of  soil  and  climate,  the  population  of 
Portugal  declines,  and  her  people  become  more  enslaved  from  day 
to  day,  while  her  government  is  driven  to  repudiation  of  her  debts. 
Belgium,  on  the  contrary,  grows  in  wealth  and  population,  and 
her  people  become  more  free;  and  the  cause  of  difference  is,  that 
the  policy  of  the  former  has  always  looked  to  repelling  the  artisan, 
and  thus  preventing  the  growth  of  towns  and  of  the  habit  of  asso 
ciation  j  while  that  of  the  latter  has  always  looked  to  bringing  the 
artisan  to  the  raw  material,  and  thus  enabling  her  people  to  com 
bine  their  efforts  for  their  improvement  in  material,  moral,  and 
intellectual  condition,  without  which  there  can  be  no  increase  of 
freedom. 

Russia  and  Spain  seek  to  raise  the  value  of  labour  and  land,  and 
they  are  now  attracting  population.  The  English  system,  based 
on  cheap  labour,  destroys  the  value  of  both  labour  and  land,  and 
therefore  it  is  that  there  is  so  large  an  export  of  men  from  the 
countries  subject  to  it — Africa,  India,  Ireland,  Scotland,  England, 
Virginia,  and  Carolina. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  863 


CHAPTER  XX. 

OF   THE   DUTY   OF   THE   PEOPLE    OF   THE   UNITED    STATES. 

THE  slave  must  apply  himself  to  such  labour  as  his  master  may 
see  fit  to  direct  him  to  perform,  and  he  must  give  to  that  master 
the  produce  of  his  exertions,  receiving  in  return  whatever  the 
master  may  see  fit  to  give  him.  He  is  limited  to  a  single  place  of 
exchange. 

Precisely  similar  to  this  is  the  systen  which  looks  to  limiting 
all  the  people  of  the  earth,  outside  of  England,  to  agriculture  as 
the  sole  means  of  employment;  and  carried  out  by  "  smothering  in 
their  infancy  the  manufactures  of  other  nations/'  while  crushing 
the  older  ones  of  India  by  compelling  her  to  receive  British  manu 
factures  free  of  duty,  and  refusing  to  permit  her  to  have  good  ma 
chinery,  while  taxing  her  spindles  and  looms  at  home,  and  their 
products  when  sent  to  Britain.  It  is  one  which  looks  to  allowing 
the  nations  of  the  world  to  have  but  one  market,  in  which  all  are 
to  compete  for  the  sale  of  their  raw  products,  and  one  market,  in 
which  all  are  to  compete  for  the  purchase  of  manufactured  ones ; 
leaving  to  the  few  persons  who  control  that  market  the  power  to 
fix  the  prices  of  all  they  require  to  buy  and  all  they  desire  to  sell. 
Cotton  and  corn,  indigo  and  wool,  sugar  and  coffee,  are  merely 
the  various  forms  in  which  labour  is  sold ;  and  the  cheaper  they 
are  sold,  the  cheaper  must  be  the  labour  employed  in  producing 
them,  the  poorer  and  more  enslaved  must  be  the  labourer,  the  less 
must  be  the  value  of  land,  the  more  rapid  must  be  its  exhaustion 
and  abandonment,  and  the  greater  must  be  the  tendency  toward 
the  transport  of  the  enslaved  labourer  to  some  new  field  of  action, 
there  to  repeat  the  work  of  exhaustion  and  abandonment.  Hence 
it  is  that  we  see  the  slave  trade  prevail  to  so  great  an  extent  in  all 
the  countries  subject  to  the  British  system,  except  those  in  which 
famine  and  pestilence  are  permitted  silently  to  keep  down  the 
population  to  the  level  of  a  constantly  diminishing  supply  of  food, 


364  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

as  in  Portugal,  Turkey,  and  Jamaica.  The  system  to  which  the 
world  is  indebted  for  these  results  is  called  "free  trade ;"  but 
there  can  be  no  freedom  of  trade  where  there  is  no  freedom  of 
man,  for  the  first  of  all  commodities  to  be  exchanged  is  labour, 
and  the  freedom  of  man  consists  only  in  the  exercise  of  the  right 
to  determine  for  himself  in  what  manner  his  labour  shall  be 
employed,  and  how  he  will  dispose  of  its  products.  If  the  British 
system  tends  toward  freedom,  proof  of  the  fact  will  be  found  in 
the  free  employment  of  labour  where  it  exists,  and  in  the  exercise 
by  the  labourer  of  a  large  control  over  the  application  of  its  pro 
duce.  Are  these  things  to  be  found  in  India '/  Certainly  not. 
The  labourer  there  is  driven  from  the  loom  and  forced  to  raise  sugar 
or  cotton,  and  his  whole  control  over  what  is  paid  by  the  consumer 
for  the  products  of  his  labour  cannot  exceed  fifteen  per  cent.  Can 
they  be  found  in  Ireland,  in  Turkey,  or  in  Portugal  ?  Certainly 
not.  The  labourers  of  those  countries  now  stand  before  the  world 
distinguished  for  their  poverty,  and  for  their  inability  to  determine 
for  themselves  for  whom  they  will  labour  or  what  shall  be  their 
reward.  Were  it  otherwise,  the  "  free  trade"  system  would  fail  to 
produce  the  effect  intended.  Its  object  is,  and  has  always  been,  that 
of  preventing  other  communities  from  mining  the  coal  or  smelting 
the  ore  provided  for  their  use  by  the  great  Creator  of  all  things,  and 
in  such  vast  abundance ;  from  making  or  obtaining  machinery  to 
enable  them  to  avail  themselves  of  the  expansive  power  of  steam ; 
from  calling  to  their  aid  any  of  the  natural  agents  required  in  the 
various  processes  of  manufacture ;  from  obtaining  knowledge  that 
might  lead  to  improvement  in  manufactures  of  any  kind;  and,  in 
short,  from  doing  any  thing  but  raise  sugar,  coffee,  cotton,  wool, 
indigo,  silk,  and  other  raw  commodities,  to  be  carried,  as  does 
the  slave  of  Virginia  or  Texas  with  the  product  of  his  labour,  to 
one  yreat  purchaser,  who  determines  upon  their  value  and  upon 
the  value  of  all  the  things  they  are  to  receive  in  exchange  fur 
them.  It  is  the  most  gigantic  system  of  slavery  the  world  has  yet 
seen,  and  therefore  it  is  that  freedom  gradually  disappears  from 
every  country  over  which  England  is  enabled  to  obtain  control,  as 
witness  the  countries  to  which  reference  has  just  been  made. 


DOMESTIC   AXD   FOREIGN.  365 

There  are,  however,  as  has  been  shown,  several  nations  of  Europe 
in  which  men  are  daily  becoming  more  free;  and  the  reason  for 
this  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  they  have  resisted  this  oppressive 
system.  Germany  and  Russia,  Spain,  Denmark,  Belgium,  and 
other  states,  have  been  determined  to  protect  their  farmers  in 
their  efforts  to  bring  the  loom  and  the  anvil  to  their  side,  and  to 
have  towns  and  other  places  of  exchange  in  their  neighbourhood, 
at  which  they  could  exchange  raw  products  for  manufactured  ones 
and  for  manure ;  and  in  every  one  in  which  that  protection  has 
been  efficient,  labour  and  land  have  become,  and  are  becoming, 
more  valuable  and  man  more  free. 

In  this  country  protection  has  always,  to  some  extent,  existed ; 
but  at  some  times  it  has  been  efficient,  and  at  others  not;  and  our 
tendency  toward  freedom  or  slavery  has  always  been  in  the  direct 
ratio  of  its  efficiency  or  inefficiency.  In  the  period  from  1824  to 
1833,  the  tendency  was  steadily  in  the  former  direction,  but  it  was 
only  in  the  latter  part  of  it  that  it  was  made  really  efficient.  Then 
mills  and  furnaces  increased  in  number,  and  there  was  a  steady 
increase  in  the  tendency  toward  the  establishment  of  local  places 
of  exchange ;  and  then  it  was  that  Virginia  held  her  convention  at 
which  was  last  discussed  in  that  State  the  question  of  emancipation. 
In  1833,  however,  protection  was  abandoned,  and  a  tariif  was  esta 
blished  by  which  it  was  provided  that  we  should,  in  a  few  years, 
have  a  system  of  merely  revenue  duties ;  and  from  that  date  the 
abandonment  of  the  older  States  proceeded  with  a  rapidity  never 
before  known,  and  with  it  grew  the  domestic  slave  trade  and  the 
pro-slavery  feeling.  Then  it  was  that  were  passed  the  laws  restrict 
ing  emancipation  and  prohibiting  education ;  and  then  it  was  that 
the  export  of  slaves  from  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  was  so  great 
that  the  population  of  those  States  remained  almost,  if  not  quite 
stationary,  and  that  the  growth  of  black  population  fell  from  thirty 
per  cent.,  in  the  ten  previous  years,  to  twenty-four  per  cent.* 
That  large  export  of  slaves  resulted  in  a  reduction  of  the  price 
of  Southern  products  to  a  point  never  before  known ;  and  thus  it 

*  In  the  first  half  of  this  period  the  export  was  small,  whereas  in  the  last  one, 
1835  to  1840,  it  must  have  been  in  excess  of  the  growth  of  population. 

31* 


366 


THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 


was  that  the  system  called  free  trade  provided  cheap  cotton. 
Slavery  grew  at  the  South  and  at  the  North ;  for  with  cheap  cot 
ton  and  cheap  food  came  so  great  a  decline  in  the  demand  for 
labour,  that  thousands  of  men  found  themselves  unable  to  purchase 
this  cheap  food  to  a  sufficient  extent  to  feed  their  wives  and  their 
children.  A  paper  by  "a  farm  labourer'7  thus  describes  that  ca 
lamitous  portion  of  our  history,  when  the  rapid  approach  of  the 
system  called  free  trade,  under  the  strictly  revenue  provisions  of 
the  Compromise  Tariff,  had  annihilated  competition  for  the  pur 
chase  of  labour : — 

"  The  years  1839,  1840,  and  1841  were  striking  elucidations  of  such 
eases ;  when  the  cry  of  sober,  industrious,  orderly  men — '  Give  me 
work!  only  give  me  work  ;  MAKE  YOUR  OWN  TERMS — MYSELF  AND  FAMILY 
HAVE  NOTHING  TO  EAT' —  was  heard  in  our  land.  In  those  years  thou 
sands  of  cases  of  the  kind  occurred  in  our  populous  districts." — Pitts 
burgh  Dispatch. 

That  such  was  the  fact  must  be  admitted  by  all  who  recollect 
the  great  distress  that  existed  in  1841-2.  Throughout  the  whole 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  there  was  an  universal  cry  of 
"  Give  me  work ;  make  your  own  terms — myself  and  family  have 
nothing  to  eat;"  and  the  consequence  of  this  approach  toward 
slavery  was  so  great  a  diminution  in  the  consumption  of  food, 
that  the  prices  at  which  it  was  then  exported  to  foreign  countries 
were  lower  than  they  had  been  for  many  years ;  and  thus  it  was 
that  the  farmer  paid  for  the  system  which  had  diminished  the  free 
dom  of  the  labourer  and  the  artisan. 

It  was  this  state  of  things  that  re-established  protection  for  the 
American  labourer,  whether  in  the  field  or  in  the  workshop.  The 
tariff  of  1842  was  passed,  and  at  once  there  arose  competition  for 
the  purchase  of  labour.  Mills  were  to  be  built,  and  men  were 
needed  to  quarry  the  stone  and  get  out  the  lumber,  and  other  men 
were  required  to  lay  the  stone  and  fashion  the  lumber  into  floors 
and  roofs,  doors  and  windows ;  and  the  employment  thus  afforded 
enabled  vast  numbers  of  men  again  to  occupy  houses  of  their  own, 
and  thus  was  produced  a  new  demand  for  masons  and  carpenters, 
quarrymen  and  lumbermen.  Furnaces  were  built,  and  mines  were 
opened,  and  steam-engines  were  required ;  and  the  mei?  employed 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  367 

at  these  works  were  enabled  to  consume  more  largely  of  food,  while 
ceasing  to  contend  with  the  agricultural  labourer  for  employment 
on  the  farm.  Mills  were  filled  with  females,  and  the  demand  for 
cloths  increased,  with  corresponding  diminution  in  the  competition 
for  employment  in  the  making  of  shirts  and  coats.  Wages  roso, 
and  they  rose  in  every  department  of  labour;  the  evidence  of 
which  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  consumption  of  food  and 
fuel  greatly  increased,  while  that  of  cloth  almost  doubled,  and  that 
of  iron  trebled  in  the  short  period  of  five  years. 

How,  indeed,  could  it  be  otherwise  than  that  the  reward  of 
labour  should  rise  ?  The  cotton  manufacturer  needed  labourers, 
male  and  female,  and  so  did  his  neighbour  of  the  woollens  mill;  and 
the  labourers  they  now  employed  could  buy  shoes  and  hats.  The 
iron-masters  and  the  coal-miners  needed  workmen,  and  the  men 
they  employed  needed  cotton  and  woollen  cloths ;  and  they  could 
consume  more  largely  of  food.  The  farmer's  markets  tended  to 
improve,  and  he  could  buy  more  largely  of  hats  and  shoes,  ploughs 
and  harrows,  and  the  hatmakers  and  shoemakers,  and  the  makers 
of  ploughs  and  harrows,  needed  more  hands ;  and  therefore  capital 
was  everywhere  looking  for  labour,  where  before  labour  had  been 
looking  for  capital.  The  value  of  cottons,  and  woollens,  and  iron 
produced  in  1846,  as  compared  with  that  of  1842,  was  greater  by 
a  hundred  millions  of  dollars ;  and  all  this  went  to  the  payment 
of  labour,  for  all  the  profits  of  the  iron-master  and  of  the  cotton 
and  woollen  manufacturer  went  to  the  building  of  new  mills  and 
furnaces,  or  to  the  enlargement  of  the  old  ones.  Unhappily,  how 
ever,  for  us,  our  legislators  were  smitten  with  a  love  of  the  system 
called  free  trade.  They  were  of  opinion  that  we  were,  by  right, 
an  agricultural  nation,  and  that  so  we  must  continue ;  and  that  the 
true  way  to  produce  competition  for  the  purchase  of  labour  was  to 
resolve  the  whole  nation  into  a  body  of  farmers — and  the  tariff  of 
1842  was  repealed. 

If  the  reader  will  now  turn  to  page  107,  he  will  see  how  large 
must  have  been  the  domestic  slave  trade  from  1835  to  1840,  com 
pared  with  that  of  the  period  from  1840  to  1845.  The  effect  of 
this  in  increasing  the  crop  and  reducing  the  price  of  cotton  was 


868  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

felt  with  great  severity  in  the  latter  period,*  and  it  required  tirao 
to  bring  about  a  change.  We  are  now  moving  in  the  same  direc 
tion  in  which  we  moved  from  1835  to  1840.  For  four  years  past, 
we  have  not  only  abandoned  the  building  of  mills  and  furnaces, 
but  have  closed  hundreds  of  old  ones,  and  centralization,  therefore, 
grows  from  day  to  day.  The  farmer  of  Ohio  can  no  longer  ex 
change  his  food  directly  with  the  maker  of  iron.  He  must  carry 
it  to  New  York,  as  must  the  producer  of  cotton  in  Carolina,  who 
sees  the  neighbouring  factory  closed. f  Local  places  of  exchange 
decline,  and  great  cities  take  their  place ;  and  with  the  growth  of 
centralization  grows  the  slave  trade,  North  and  South.  Palaces 
rise  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  while  droves  of  black  slaves 
are  sent  to  Texas  to  raise  cotton,  and  white  ones  at  the  North  perish 
of  disease,  and  sometimes  almost  of  famine.  "  We  could  tell,"  says 
a  recent  writer  in  one  of  the  New  York  journals — 

"  Of  one  room,  twelve  feet  by  twelve,  in  which  were  five  resident 
families,  comprising  twenty  persons  of  both  sexes  and  all  ages,  with  • 
only  two  beds,  without  partition  or  screen,  or  chair  or  table,  and  all 
dependent  for  their  miserable  support  upon  the  sale  of  chips,  gleaned 
from  the  streets,  at  four  cents  a  basket — of  another,  still  smaller  and 
still  more  destitute,  inhabited  by  a  man,  a  woman,  two  little  girls,  and 
a  boy,  who  were  supported  by  permitting  the  room  to  be  used  as  a 
rendezvous  by  the  abandoned  women  of  the  street — of  another,  an  at 
tic  room  seven  feet  by  five,  containing  scarcely  an  article  of  furniture 
but  a  bed,  on  which  lay  a  fine-looking  man  in  a  raging  fever,  without 
medicine  or  drink  or  suitable  food,  his  toil-worn  wife  engaged  in  clean 
ing  dirt  from  the  floor,  and  his  little  child  asleep  on  a  bundle  of  rags 
in  the  corner — of  another  of  the  same  dimensions,  in  which  we  found, 
seated  on  low  boxes  around  a  candle  placed  on  a  keg,  a  woman  and 
her  oldest  daughter,  (the  latter  a. girl  of  fifteen,  and,  as  we  were  told, 
a  prostitute,)  sewing  on  shirts,  for  the  making  of  ivldch  they  were  paid 
four  cents  apiece,  and  even  at  that  price,  out  of  which  they  had  to  sup 
port  two  small  children,  they  could  not  get  a  supply  of  work — of  another 
of  about  the  same  size  occupied  by  a  street  rag-picker  and  his  family, 

*  From  1842  to  1845  the  average  crop  was  2,250,000  bales,  or  half  a  million 
more  than  the  average  of  the  four  previous  years.  From  1847  to  1850  the  ave 
rage  was  only  2,260.000  bales,  and  the  price  rose,  which  could  not  have  been  the 
case  had  the  slave  trade  been  as  brisk  between  1840  and  1845  as  it  had  been  be 
tween  1835  and  1840. 

f  See  page  108,  ante,  for  the  sale  of  the  negroes  of  the  Saluda  Manufacturing 
Company. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  369 

the  income  of  whose  industry  was  eight  dollars  a  month — of  another, 
scarcely  larger,  into  which  we  were  drawn  by  the  terrific  screams  of  a 
drunken  man  beating  his  wife,  containing  no  article  of  furniture  what 
ever — another  warmed  only  by  a  tin  pail  of  lighted  charcoal  placed 
in  the  centre  of  the  room,  over  which  bent  a  blind  man  endeavouring 
to  warm  himself;  around  him  three  or  four  men  and  women  swearing 
and  quarrelling ;  in  one  corner  on  the  floor  a  woman,  who  had  died  Ibe 
day  previous  of  disease,  and  in  another  two  or  three  children  sleeping 
on* a  pile  of  rags ;  (in  regard  to  this  room,  we  may  say  that  its  occu 
pants  were  coloured  people,  and  from  them  but  a  few  days  previous 
had  been  taken  and  adopted  by  one  of  our  benevolent  citizens  a  beau 
tiful  little  white  girl,  four  or  five  years  of  age,  whose  father  was  dead 
and  whose  mother  was  at  BlackwelPs  Island  ;)  another  from  which  not 
long  since  twenty  persons  sick  with  fever  were  taken  to  the  hospital, 
and  every  individual  of  them  died.  But  why  extend  the  catalogue  ? 
Or  why  attempt  to  convey  to  the  imagination  by  words  the  hideous 
squalor  and  the  deadly  effluvia;  the  dim,  undrained  courts,  oozing  with 
pollution ;  the  dark  narrow  stairways  decayed  with  age,  reeking  with 
filth,  and  overrun  with  vermin ;  the  rotten  floors,  ceilings  begrimed, 
crumbling,  ofttimes  too  low  to  permit  you  to  stand  upright,  and  win 
dows  stuffed  with  rags  ;  or  why  try  to  portray  the  gaunt  shivering 
forms  and  wild  ghastly  faces  in  these  black  and  beetling  abodes, 
wherein  from  cellar  to  garret 

'All  life  dies,  death  lives,  and  nature  breeds 

Perverse,  all  monstrous,  all  prodigious  things, 
Abominable,  unutterable  !' "    • 

N.  York  Courier  and  Inquirer. 

Our  shops  are  now  everywhere  filled  with  the  products  of  the 
cheap  labour  of  England — of  the  labour  of  those  foreign  women 
who  make  shirts  at  a  penny  apiece,  finding  the  needles  and  the 
thread,  and  of  those  poor  girls  who  spend  a  long  day  at  making 
artificial  flowers  for  which  they  receive  two  pence,  and  then  eke 
out  the  earnings  of  labour  by  the  wages  of  prostitution ;  and  our 
women  are  everywhere  driven  from  employment — the  further  con 
sequences  of  which  may  be  seen  in  the  following  extract  from  an 
other  journal  of  the  day  : — 

"  A  gentleman  who  had  been  deputed  to  inquire  into  the  condition 
of  this  class  of  operatives,  found  one  of  the  most  expert  of  them 
working  from  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  eleven  at  night,  yet 
earning  only  about  three  dollars  a  week.  Out  of  this,  she  had  to  pay 
a  dollar  and  a  half  for  board,  leaving  a  similar  amount  for  fuel,  cloth 
ing,  and  all  other  expenses.  Her  condition,  however,  as  compared 
with  that  of  her  class  generally,  was  one  of  opulence.  The  usual 
earnings  were  but  two  dollars  a  week,  which,  as  respectable  board 
could  be  had  nowhere  for  less  than  a  dollar  and  a  half,  left  only  Jifty 
cents  for  every  thing  else.  The  boarding-houses,  even  at  this  price-  are 


370  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

of  the  poorest  character,  always  noisome  and  unhealthy,  and  not  un- 
frequently  in  vile  neighbourhoods.  With  such  positive  and  immediate 
evils  to  contend  with,  what  wonder  that  so  many  needlewomen  take 
'the  wages  of  sin?'  " 

"  Among  the  cases  brought  to  light  in  New  York,  was  that  of  an 
intelligent  and  skilful  dressmaker,  who  was  found  in  the  garret  of  a 
cheap  boarding-house,  out  of  work,  and  reduced  to  such  straits  that  she 
had  actually  pawned  every  thing  but  her  skirt  and  her  under-garment,  in 
order  to  procure  bread.  Nor  are  such  instances  uufrequent.  The  small 
remuneration  which  these  workwomen  receive  keeps  them  living  from 
hand  to  mouth,  so  that,  in  case  of  sickness,  or  scarcity  of  work,  they 
are  sometimes  left  literally  without  a  crust." — Philada.  Evening  Bulletin. 

If  females  cannot  tend  looms,  make  flowers,  or  do  any  other  of 
those  things  in  which  mind  takes  in  a  great  degree  the  place  of 
physical  power,  they  must  make  shirts  at  four  cents  apiece,  or  re 
sort  to  prostitution — or,  they  may  work  in  the  fields }  and  this  is 
nearly  the  latitude  of  choice  allowed  to  them  under  the  system 
called  free  trade.  Every  furnace  that  is  closed  in  Pennsylvania  by 
the  operation  of  this  system,  lessens  the  value  of  labour  in  the  neigh 
bourhood,  and  drives  out  some  portion  of  the  people  to  endeavour 
to  sell  elsewhere  their  only  commodity,  labour.  Some  seek  the 
cities  and  some  go  West  to  try  their  fortunes.  So,  too,  with  the 
closing  of  woollens  mills  in  New  York,  and  cotton  mills  in  New 
England.  Every  such  case  compels  people  to  leave  their  old 
homes  and  try  to  find  new  ones — and  in  this  form  the  slave  trade 
now  exists  at  the  North*  to  a  great  extent.  The  more  people  thus 
driven  to  the  cities,  the  cheaper  is  labour,  and  the  more  rapid  is 
the  growth  of  drunkenness  and  crime  j  and  these  effects  are 
clearly  visible  in  the  police  reports  of  all  our  cities.*  Ceutraliza- 

*  The  following  passage  from  one  of  the  journals  of  the  day  is  worthy  of  care 
ful  perusal  by  those  who  desire  to  understand  the  working  of  the  present  system 
of  revenue  duties,  under  which  the  mills  and  furnaces  of  the  country  have  to  so 
great  an  extent  been  closed,  and  the  farmers  and  planters  of  the  country  to  so 
great  an  extent  been  driven  to  New  York  to  make  all  their  exchanges : — 

"  Mr.  Matsell  [chief  of  police,  New  York]  tells  us  that  during  the  six  months 
ending  31st  December,  1852,  there  have  been  19,901  persons  arrested  for  various 
offences,  giving  a  yearly  figure  of  nearly  40,000  arrests.  *  *  *  The  number  of 
arrests  being  40,000,  or  thereabouts,  in  a  population  of  say  600,000,.  gives  a  per 
centage  of  6.6  on  the  whole  number  of  inhabitants.  We  have  no  data  to  esti 
mate  the  state  of  crime  in  Paris  under  the  imperial  reyime ;  but  in  London  the 
returns  of  the  metropolitan  police  for  1850,  show  70,827  arrests,  out  of  a  popula- 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  371 

tion,  poverty,  and  crime  go  always  hand  in  hand  with  each 
other. 

The  closing  of  mills  and  furnaces  in  Mary  land  lessens  the  demand 
for  labour  there,  and  the  smaller  that  demand  the  greater  must  be 
the  necessity  on  the  part  of  those  who  own  slaves  to  sell  them  to 
go  South ;  and  here  we  find  the  counterpart  of  the  state  of  things 
already  described  as  existing  in  New  York.  The  Virginian,  limited 
to  negroes  as  the  only  commodity  into  which  he  can  manufacture  his 
corn  and  thus  enable  it  to  travel  cheaply  to  market,  sends  his  crop 
to  Richmond,  and  the  following  extract  of  a  letter  from  that  place 

shows  how  the  system  works  : — 

"  Richmond,  March  3,  1853. 

"  I  saw  several  children  sold  ;  the  girls  brought  the  highest  price. 
Girts  from  12  to  18  years  old  brought  from  $500  to  $800. 

'•  I  must  say  that  the  slaves  did  not  display  as  much  feeling  as  I  had 
expected,  as  a  general  thing — but  there  was  one  noble  exception — God 
bless  her !  and  save  her,  too  !  !  as  I  hope  he  will  in  some  way,  for  if 
he  does  not  interpose,  there  were  no  men  there  that  would. 

"She  was  a  fine-looking  woman  about  25  years  old,  with  three  beauti 
ful  children.  Her  children  as  well  as  herself  were  neatly  dressed. 
She  attracted  my  attention  at  once  on  entering  the  room,  and  I  took 
my  stand  near  her  to  learn  her  answers  to  the  various  questions  put 
to  her  by  the  traders.  One  of  these  traders  asked  her  what  was  the 
matter  with  her  eyes  ?  Wiping  away  the  tears,  she  replied,  '  I  s'pose 
I  have  been  crying.'  '  Why  do  you  cry  ?'  '  Because  I  have  left  my 
man  behind,  and  his  master  won't  let  him  come  along/  '  Oh,  if  I  buy 
you,  I  will  furnish  you  with  a  better  husband,  or  man,  as  you  call  him, 
than  your  old  one.'  'I  don't  want  any  better  and  won't  have  any  other 
as  long  as  he  lives/  'Oh,  but  you  will  though,  if  I  buy  you/  'No, 
massa,  God  helping  me,  I  never  will.' — New  York  Tribune. 

At  the  North,  the  poor  girl  driven  out  from  the  cotton  or  the 
woollens  mill  is  forced  to  make  shirts  at  four  cents  each,  or  sell 
herself  to  the  horrible  slavery  of  prostitution.  At  the  South,  this 
poor  woman,  driven  out  from  Virginia,  may  perhaps  at  some  time 
be  found  making  one  of  the  dramatis  persons  in  scenes  similar 
to  those  here  described  by  Dr.  Howe  : — 

tion  of  some  two  millions  and  a  half,  giving  a  percentage  of  less  than  three  on 
the  whole  number  of  inhabitants.  Thus  crimes  are  in  New  York  rather  more 
than  twice  as  frequent  as  in  London.  Indeed,  if  we  make  proper  allowance  for 
the  superior  vigilance  and  organization  of  the  metropolitan  police  of  London, 
and  for  the  notorious  inefficiency  of  our  own  police  force,  we  shall  probably  find 
that,  in  proportion  to  the  population,  there  is  in  New  York  twice  as  much  crime 
a?  in  London.  This  is  an  appalling  fact — a  disgraceful  disclosure." — New  York 
Herald,  March  21,  1853. 


372  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

"  If  Howard  or  Mrs.  Fry  ever  discovered  so  ill-administered  a  den 
of  thieves  as  the  New  Orleans  prison,  they  never  described  it.  In  the 
negro's  apartment  I  saw  much  which  made  me  blush  that  I  was  a 
white  man,  and  which  for  a  moment  stirred  up  an  evil  spirit  in  my 
animal  nature.  Entering  a  large  paved  court-yard,  around  which  ran 
galleries  filled  with  slaves  of  all  ages,  sexes,  and  colours,  I  heard  the 
snap  of  a  whip,  every  stroke  of  which  sounded  like  the  sharp  crack 
of  a  pistol.  I  turned  my  head,  and  beheld  a  sight  which  absolutely 
chilled  me  to  the  marrow  of  my  bones,  and  gave  me,  for  the  first  time 
in  my  life,  the  sensation  of  my  hair  stiffening  at  the  roots.  There  lay 
a  black  girl  flat  upon  her  face  on  a  board,  her  two  thumbs  tied,  and 
fastened  to  one  end,  her  feet  tied  and  drawn  tightly  to  the  other  end, 
while  a  strap  passed  over  the  small  of  her  back,  and  fastened  around 
the  board,  compressed  her  closely  to  it.  Below  the  strap  she  was  en 
tirely  naked.  By  her  side,  and  six  feet  off,  stood  a  huge  negro,  with 
a  long  whip,  which  he  applied  with  dreadful  power  and  wonderful 
precision.  Every  stroke  brought  away  a  strip  of  skin,  which  clung  to 
the  lash,  or  fell  quivering  on  the  pavement,  while  the  blood  followed 
after  it.  The  poor  creature  writhed  and  shrieked,  and  in  a  voice  which 
showed  alike  her  fear  of  death  and  her  dreadful  agony,  screamed  to 
her  master  who  stood  at  her  head,  '  Oh,  spare  my  life ;  don't  cut  my 
soul  out !'  But  still  fell  the  horrid  lash  ;  still  strip  after  strip  pealed 
off  from  the  skin ;  gash  after  gash  was  cut  in  her  living  flesh,  until  it 
became  a  livid  and  bloody  mass  of  raw  and  quivering  muscle. 

"  It  was  with  the  greatest  difficulty  I  refrained  from  springing  upon 
the  torturer,  and  arresting  his  lash ;  but  alas,  what  could  I  do,  but 
turn  aside  to  hide  my  tears  for  the  sufferer,  and  my  blushes  for  hu 
manity  ! 

"  This  was  in  a  public  and  regularly  organized  prison  ;  the  punish 
ment  was  one  recognised  and  authorized  by  the  law.  But  think  you 
the  poor  wretch  had  committed  a  heinous  offence,  and  had  been  con 
victed  thereof,  and  sentenced  to  the  lash  ?  Not  at  all !  She  was 
brought  by  her  master  to  be  whipped  by  the  common  executioner, 
without  trial,  judge,  or  jury,  just  at  his  beck  or  nod,  for  some  real  or 
supposed  offence,  or  to  gratify  his  own  whim  or  malice.  And  he  may 
bring  her  day  after  day,  without  cause  assigned,  and  inflict  any  num 
ber  of  lashes  he  pleases,  short  of  twenty-five,  provided  only  he  pays 
the  fee.  Or  if  he  choose,  he  may  have  a  private  whipping-board  on 
his  own  premises,  and  brutalize  himself  there. 

"A  shocking  part  of  this  horrid  punishment  was  its  publicity,  as  I 
have  said  ;  it  was  in  a  court-yard,  surrounded  by  galleries,  which  were 
filled  with  coloured  persons  of  all  sexes — runaway  slaves  committed 
for  some  crime,  or  slaves  up  for  sale.  You  would  naturally  suppose 
they  crowded  forward  and  gazed  horrow-stricken  at  the  brutal  specta 
cle  below ;  but  they  did  not ;  many  of  them  hardly  noticed  it,  and 
many  were  entirely  indifferent  to  it.  They  went  on  in  their  childish 
pursuits,  and  some  were  laughing  outright  in  the  distant  parts  of 
the  galleries; — so  low  can  man  created  in  God's  image  be  sunk  in 
brutality." 

Where,  however,  lies  the  fault  of  all  this?     Cheap  cotton  can- 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  373 

not  be  supplied  to  the  world  unless  the  domestic  slave  trade  be 
maintained,  and  all  the  measures  of  England  are  directed  toward 
obtaining  a  cheap  and  abundant  supply  of  that  commodity,  to  give 
employment  to  that  "cheap  and  abundant  supply  of  labour"  so 
much  desired  by  the  writers  in  the  very  journal  that  furnished  to 
its  readers  this  letter  of  Dr.  Howe.*  To  produce  this  cheap  cot 
ton  the  American  labourer  must  be  expelled  from  his  home  in 
Virginia  to  the  wilds  of  Arkansas,  there  to  be  placed,  perhaps, 
under  the*  control  of  a  Simon  Legrce.'f  That  he  may  be  expelled, 
the  price  of  corn  must  be  cheapened  in  Virginia;  and  that  it  may 
be  cheapened,  the  cheap  labourer  of  Ireland  must  be  brought  to 
England  there  to  compete  with  the  Englishman  for  the  reduction 
of  labour  to  such  a  price  as  will  enable  England  to  "smother  in 
their  infancy"  all  attempts  at  manufacturing  corn  into  any  thing  but 
negroes  for  Arkansas.  That  done,  should  the  Englishman's  "  blood 
boil"  on  reading  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  he  is  told  to  recollect  that  it  is 
"  to  his  advantage  that  the  slave  'should  be  permitted  to  wear  his 
chains  in  peace."  And  yet  this  system,  which  looks  everywhere  to 
the  enslavement  of  man,  is  dignified  by  the  name  of  "  free 
trade." 

The  cheap-labour  system  of  England  produces  the  slave  trade 
of  America,  India,  and  Ireland ;  and  the  manner  in  which  it  is  en 
abled  to  produce  that  effect,  and  the  extent  of  its  "advantage"  to 
the  people  of  England  itself,  is  seen  in  the  following  extract  from  a 
speech  delivered  at  a  public  meeting  in  that  country  but  a  few 
weeks  since  : — 

"  The  factory-law  was  so  unblushingly  violated  that  the  chief  in 
spector  of  that  part  of  the  factory  district,  Mr.  Leonard  Homer,  had 
found  himself  necessitated  to  write  to  the  Home  Secretary,  to  say  that 
he  dared  not,  and  would  not  send  any  of  his  sub-inspectors  into  cer 
tain  districts  until  he  had  police  protection.  *  *  *  And  protection 
against  whom?  Against  the  factory-masters!  Against  the  richest 
men  in  the  district,  against  the  most  influential  men  in  the  district, 
against  the  magistrates  of  the  district,  against  the  men  who  hold  her 
Majesty's  commission,  against  the  men  who  sat  in  the  Petty  Sessions 
as  the  representatives  of  royalty.  *  *  *  And  did  the  masters 


*  North  British  Review,  Nov.  1852.         f  See  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  chap.  xxxi. 

32 


374  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

suffer  for  their  violation  of  the  law?  In  his  own  district  it  was  a 
settled  custom  of  the  male,  and  to  a  great  extent  of  the  female  work 
ers  in  factories,  to  be  in  bed  from  9,  10  or  11  o'clock  on  Sunday,  be 
cause  they  were  tired  out  by  the  labour  of  the  week.  Sunday  was  the 
only  day  on  which  they  could  rest  their  wearied  frames.  *  *  It 
would  generally  be  found  that,  the  longer  the  time  of  work,  the  smaller 
the  wages.  *  '  He  would  rather  be  a  slave  in  South  Carolina,  than 
a  factory  operative  in  England." — Speech  of  Rev.  Dr.  Bramwell,  at 
Crampton. 

The  whole  profit,  we  are  told,  results  from  "  the  last  hour/'  and 
were  that  hour  taken  from  the  master,  then  the  people  of  Virginia 
might  be  enabled  to  make  their  own  cloth  and  iron,  and  labour  might 
there  become  so  valuable  that  slaves  would  cease  to  be  exported  to 
Texas,  and  cotton  must  then  rise  in  price ;  and  in  order  to  prevent 
the  occurrence  of  such  unhappy  events,  the  great  cotton  manufac 
turers  set  at  defiance  the  law  of  the  land  !  The  longer  the  work 
ing  hours  the  more  "  cheap  and  abundant"  will  be  the  "  supply  of 
labour," — and  it  is  only  by  aid  of  this  cheap,  or  slave,  labour  that, 
as  we  are  told,  "  the  supremacy  of  England  in  manufactures  can 
be  maintained."  The  cheaper  the  labour,  the  more  rapid  must  be 
the  growth  of  individual  fortunes,  and  the  more  perfect  the  con- 
consolidation  of  the  land.  Extremes  thus  always  meet.  The 
more  splendid  the  palace  of  the  trader,  whether  in  cloth,  cotton, 
uegroes,  or  Hindoos,  the  more  squalid  will  be  the  poverty  of 
the  labourer,  his  wife  and  children, — and  the  more  numerous 
the  diamonds  on  the  coat  of  Prince  Esterhazy,  the  more  ragged 
will  be  his  serfs.  The  more  that  local  places  of  exchange  are 
closed,  the  greater  will  be  the  tendency  to  the  exhaustion  and 
abandonment  of  the  land,  and  the  more  nourishing  will  be  the 
slave  trade,  North  and  South, — and  the  greater  will  be  the  growth 
of  pro-slavery  at  the  South,  and  anti-slavery  at  the  North.  The 
larger  the  export  of  negroes  to  the  South,  the  greater  will  be  their 
tendency  to  run  from  their  masters  to  the  North,  and  the  greater 
will  be  the  desire  at  the  North  to  shut  them  out,  as  is  proved  by 
the  following  law  of  Illinois,  now  but  a  few  weeks  old,  by  which 
negro  slavery  is,  as  is  here  seen,  re-established  in  the  territory  for 
the  government  of  which  was  passed  the  celebrated  ordinance  of 
1787:- 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  375 


"  Be  it  enacted  l>y  the  People  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  represented  in  the 
General  Assembly. 

$  3.  If  any  negro  or  mulatto,  bond  or  free,  shall  come  into  this 
State,  and  remain  ten  days,  with  the  evident  intention  of  residing  in 
the  same,  every  such  negro  or  mulatto  shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  a 
high  misdemeanour,  and  for  the  first  offence  shall  be  fined  the  sum  of 
fifty  dollars,  to  be  recovered  before  any  justice  of  the  peace,  in  the 
county  where  said  negro  or  mulatto  may  be  found ;  said  proceeding 
shall  be  in  the  name  of  the  people  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  shall  be 
tried  by  a  jury  of  twelve  men. 

§  4.  If  said  negro  OP  mulatto  shall  be  found  guilty,  and  the  fine 
assessed  be  not  paid  forthwith  to  the  justice  of  the  peace  before  whom 
said  proceedings  were  had,  said  justice  shall  forthwith  advertise  said 
negro  or  mulatto,  by  posting  up  notices  thereof  in  at  least  three  of  the 
most  public  places  in  his  district,  which  said  notices  shall  be  posted 
up  for  ten  days  ;  and  on  the  day,  and  at  the  time  and  place  men 
tioned  in  said  advertisement,  the  said  justice  shall  at  PUBLIC  AUCTION 
proceed  TO  SELL  said  negro  or  mulatto  to  any  person  who  will  pay 
said  fine  and  costs." 

Slavery  now  travels  North,  whereas  only  twenty  years  ago  free 
dom  was  travelling  South.  That  such  is  the  case  is  the  natural 
consequence  of  our  submission,  even  in  part,  to  the  system  that 
looks  to  compelling  the  export  of  raw  products,  the  exhaustion  of 
the  land,  the  cheapening  of  labour,  and  the  export  of  the  labourer. 
Wherever  it  is  submitted  to,  slavery  grows.  Wherever  it  is  re 
sisted,  slavery  dies  away,  and  freedom  grows,  as  is  shown  in  the 
following  list  of — 

Countries  whose  policy  looks  to  Countries  whose  policy  looks  to 

cheapening  labour.  raising  the  value  of  labour. 

The  West  Indies,  Northern  Germany, 

Portugal,  Russia, 

Turkey,  Denmark, 

India,  Spain, 

Ireland,  Belgium, 
United  States  under  the  Compro-       United   States   under  the 

raise  and  the  tariff  of  1846.  tariffs  of  1828  and  1842. 

Population  declines  in  all  the  foreign  countries  in  the  first  co 
lumn,  and  it  became  almost  stationary  in  the  Northern  Slave  States, 
as  it  is  now  likely  again  to  do,  because  of  the  large  extent  of  the 
domestic  slave  trade.  Population  grows  in  the  foreign  countries 


376  THE   SLAVE    TRADE, 

of  the  second  column,  and  it  grew  rapidly  in  the  Northern  Slave 
States,  because  of  the  limited  export  of  negroes  at  the  periods  re 
ferred  to.  The  first  column  gives  the — so-called — free-trade  coun 
tries,  and  the  other  those  which  have  protected  themselves  against 
the  system ;  and  yet  slavery  grows  in  all  those  of  the  first  column, 
and  freedom  in  all  those  of  the  second.  The  first  column  gives  us 
the  countries  in  which  education  diminishes  and  intellect  declines, 
and  the  period  in  our  own  history  in  which  were  passed  the  laws 
prohibiting  the  education  of  negroes.  The  second,  those  countries 
in  which  education  advances,  with  great  increase  of  intellectual 
activity;  and  in  our  own  history  it  gives  the  period  at  which  the 
Northern  Slave  States  held  conventions  having  in  view  the  adoption 
of  measures  looking  to  the  abolition  of  slavery.  The  first  gives 
those  foreign  countries  in  which  women  and  children  must  labour 
in  the  field  or  remain  unemployed.  The  second  those  in  which 
there  is  a  daily  increasing  demand  for  the  labour  of  women,  to  be 
employed  in  the  lighter  labour  of  manufactures.  The  first  gives  those 
in  which  civilization  advances;  and  the  second  those  in  which  there 
is  a  daily  increasing  tendency  toward  utter  barbarism.  We  are 
now  frequently  invited  to  an  alliance  with  Grreat  Britain,  and  for 
what  ?  For  maintaining  and  extending  the  system  whose  effects 
are  found  in  all  the  nations  enumerated  in  the  first  column.  For 
increasing  the  supply  of  cheap  cotton,  cheap  corn,  and  cheap  sugar, 
all  of  which  require  cheap,  or  slave,  labour,  and  in  return  for  these 
things  we  are  to  have  cheap  cloth,  the  produce  of  the  cheap,  or 
slave,  labour  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 

It  is  as  the  advocate  of  freedom  that  Britain  calls  upon  us  to 
enter  into  more  intimate  relations  with  her.  Her  opponents  are, 
as  we  are  told,  the  despots  of  Europe,  the  men  who  are  trampling 
on  the  rights  of  their  subjects,  and  who  are  jealous  of  her  because 
her  every  movement  looks,  as  we  are  assured,  to  the  establishment 
of  freedom  throughout  the  world.  Were  this  so,  it  might  furnish 
some  reason  for  forgetting  the  advice  of  Washington  in  regard  to 
''entangling  alliances;"  but,  before  adopting  such  a  course,  it 
would  be  proper  to  have  evidence  that  the  policy  of  Britain,  at  any 
time  since  the  days  of  Adam  Smith,  has  tended  to  the  enfranchise- 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  377 

ment  of  man  in  any  part  of  the  world,  abroad  or  at  home.  Of  all 
the  despots  now  complained  of,  the  King  of  Naples  stands  most 
conspicuous,  and  it  is  in  relation  to  him  that  a  pamphlet  has  re 
cently  been  published  by  the  present  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
in  which  are  found  the  following  passages : — 

"  The  general  belief  is,  that  the  prisoners  for  political  offences  in 
the  kingdom  of  the  Two  Sicilies  are  between  fifteen  or  twenty  and 
thirty  thousand.  The  government  withholds  all  means  of  accurate  in 
formation,  and  accordingly  there  can  be  no  certainty  on  the  point.  I 
have,  however,  found  that  this  belief  is  shared  by  persons  the  most  in 
telligent,  considerate,  and  well  informed.  It  is  also  supported  by  what 
is  known  of  the  astonishing  crowds  confined  in  particular  prisons,  and 
especially  by  what  is  accurately  known  in  particular  provincial  locali 
ties,  as  to  the  numbers  of  individuals  missing  from  among  the  com 
munity.  I  have  heard  these  numbers,  for  example,  at  Reggio  and  at 
Salerno ;  and  from  an  effort  to  estimate  them  in  reference  to  popula 
tion,  I  do  believe  that  twenty  thousand  is  no  unreasonable  estimate. 
In  Naples  alone  some  hundreds  are  at  this  moment  under  indictment 
capitally ;  and  when  I  quitted  it  a  trial  was  expected  to  come  on  im 
mediately,  (called  that  of  the  fifteenth  of  May,)  in  which  the  number 
charged  was  between  four  and  five  hundred  ;  including  (though  this  is 
a  digression)  at  least  one  or  more  persons  of  high  station  whose 
opinions  would  in  this  country  be  considered  more  conservative  than 
your  own."  *  *  *  "  In  utter  defiance  of  this  law,  the  government, 
of  which  the  Prefect  of  Police  is  an  important  member,  through  the 
agents  of  that  department,  watches  and  dogs  the  people,  pays  domici 
liary  visits,  very  commonly  at  night,  ransacks  houses,  seizing  papers 
and  effects,  and  tearing  up  floors  at  pleasure  under  pretence  of  search 
ing  for  arms,  and  imprisons  men  by  the  score,  by  the  hundred,  by  the 
thousand,  without  any  warrant  whatever,  sometimes  without  even  any 
written  authority  at  all,  or  any  thing  beyond  the  word  of  a  policeman ; 
constantly  without  any  statement  whatever  of  the  nature  of  the  offence. 

"  Nor  is  this  last  fact  wonderful.  Men  are  arrested,  not  bocause 
they  have  committed,  or  are  believed  to  have  committed,  any  offence ; 
but  because  they  are  persons  whom  it  is  thought  convenient  to  confine 
and  to  get  rid  of,  and  against  whom,  therefore,  some  charge  must  be 
found  or  fabricated."* 

Why  is  it  that  the  king  is  enabled  to  do  these  things  ?  Obviously, 
because  his  people  are  poor  and  weak.  If  they  were  strong,  he  could 
not  do  them.  Men,  however,  never  have  anywhere  become  strong 
to  resist  power,  except  where  the  artisan  has  come  to  the  side  of 
the  farmer ;  and  it  is  because  he  has  not  done  so  in  Naples  and 


*  Letters  to  Lord  Aberdeen,  by  the  Right  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone,  9,  10,  12. 


378 

Sicily  that  the  people  are  so  poor,  ignorant,  and  weak  as  we  see 
them  to  be.  Has  England  ever  endeavoured  to  strengthen  the 
Neapolitan  people  by  teaching  them  how  to  combine  their  efforts 
for  the  working  of  their  rich  ores,  or  for  the  conversion  of  their 
wool  into  cloth  ?  Assuredly  not.  She  desires  that  wool  and  sul 
phur,  and  all  other  raw  materials,  may  be  cheap,  and  that  iron 
may  be  dear;  and,  that  they  may  be  so;  she  does  all  that  is  in  her 
power  to  prevent  the  existence  in  that  country  of  any  of  that  diver 
sification  of  interests  that  would  find  employment  for  men, 
women,  and  children,  and  would  thus  give  value  to  labour  and 
land.  That  she  may  do  this,  she  retains  Malta  and  the  Ionian 
Islands,  as  convenient  places  of  resort  for  the  great  reformer  of  the 
age — the  smuggler — whose  business  it  is  to  see  that  no  effort  at 
manufactures  shall  succeed,  and  to  carry  into  practical  effect  the 
decree  that  all  such  attempts  must  be  "smothered  in  their  infancy. " 
If,  under  these  circumstances,  King  Ferdinand  is  enabled  to  play 
the  tyrant,  upon  whom  rests  the  blame  ?  Assuredly,  on  the  peo 
ple  who  refuse  to  permit  the  farmers  of  the  Two  Sicilies  to 
strengthen  themselves  by  forming  that  natural  alliance  between 
the  loom  and  the  plough  to  which  the  people  of  England  were 
themselves  indebted  for  their  liberties.  Were  the  towns  of  that 
country  growing  in  size,  and  were  the  artisan  everywhere  taking 
his  place  by  the  side  of  the  farmer,  the  people  would  be  daily  be 
coming  stronger  and  more  free,  whereas  they  are  now  becoming 
weaker  and  more  enslaved. 

So,  too,  we  are  told  of  the  tyranny  and  bad  faith  prevailing  in 
Spain.  If,  however,  the  people  of  that  country  are  poor  and  weak, 
and  compelled  to  submit  to  measures  that  are  tyrannical  and  inju 
rious,  may  it  not  be  traced  to  the  fact  that  the  mechanic  has  never 
been  permitted  to  place  himself  among  them?  And  may  not  the 
cause  of  this  be  found  in  the  fact  that  Portugal  and  Gibraltar  have 
for  a  century  past  been  the  seats  of  a  vast  contraband  trade,  hav 
ing  for  its  express  object  to  deprive  the  Spanish  people  of  all  power 
to  do  any  thing  but  cultivate  the  soil?  Who,  then,  are  responsible 
for  the  subjection  of  the  Spanish  people  ?  Those,  assuredly,  whose 
policy  looks  to  depriving  the  women  and  children  of  Spain  of  all 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  879 

employment  except  in  the  field,  in  order  that  wool  may  be  cheap 
and  that  cloth  may  be  dear. 

Turkey  is  poor  and  weak,  and  we  hear  much  of  the  designs  of 
Russia,  to  be  counteracted  by  England j  but  does  England  desire 
that  Turkey  shall  grow  strong  and  her  people  become  free  ?  Doe? 
she  desire  that  manufactures  shall  rise,  that  towns  shall  grow,  and 
that  the  land  shall  acquire  value  ?  Assuredly  not.  The  right 
to  inundate  that  country  with  merchandise  is  "  a  golden  privilege" 
never  to  be  abandoned,  because  it  would  raise  the  price  of  silk  and 
lower  the  price  of  silk  goods. 

The  people  of  Austria  and  Hungary  are  weak,  but  has  England 
ever  tried  to  render  them  strong  to  obtain  their  freedom  ?  Would 
she  not  now  oppose  any  measures  calculated  to  enable  the  Hunga 
rians  to  obtain  the  means  of  converting  their  food  and  their  wool 
into  cloth — to  obtain  mechanics  and  machinery,  by  aid  of  which 
towns  could  grow,  and  their  occupants  become  strong  and  free  ? 
To  render  any  aid  of  that  kind  would  be  in  opposition  to  the  doc 
trine  of  cheap  food  and  cheap  labour. 

Northern  Germany  is  becoming  strong  and  united,  and  the  day 
is  now  at  hand  when  all  Germany  will  have  the  same  system  under 
which  the  North  has  so  much  improved ;  but  these  things  are  done 
in  opposition  to  England,  who  disapproves  of  them  because  they 
tend  to  raise  the  price  of  the  raw  products  of  the  earth  and  lower 
that  of  manufactured  ones,  and  to  enable  the  agricultural  population 
to  grow  rich  and  strong;  and  the  more  exclusively  she  depends  on 
trade,  the  greater  is  her  indisposition  to  permit  the  adoption  of  any 
measures  tending  to  limit  her  power  over  the  people  of  the  world. 

The  people  of  China  are  weak,  but  does  the  consumption  of 
opium  to  the  extent  of  forty  millions  of  dollars  a  year  tend  to 
strengthen  them  ?  The  government,  too,  is  weak,  and  therefore  is 
Hong  Kong  kept  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  athe  great  reformer" 
to  evade  the  laws  against  the  importation  of  a  commodity  that 
yields  the  East  India  Company  a  profit  of  sixteen  millions  of  dol 
lars  a  year,  and  the  consumption  of  which  is  so  rapidly  increasing. 

Burmah,  too,  is  weak,  and  therefore  is  her  territory  to  be  used 
for  the  purpose  of  extending  the  trade  in  opium  throughout  the 


380  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

interior  provinces  of  China.  Will  this  tend  to  strengthen,  or  to 
free,  the  Chinese  people  ? 

Can  the  people  of  this  country  become  parties  to  a  system  like 
this — one  that  looks  to  cheapening  labour  everywhere  ?  Can  they 
be  parties  to  any  system  that  can  be  maintained  only  on  the  con 
dition  of  "an  abundant  and  cheap  supply  of  labour V  Or,  can 
they  be  parties  to  an  alliance  that,  wherever  it  is  found,  so  far 
cheapens  man  as  to  render  him  a  profitable  article  for  the  export 
trade  ? 

Who,  then,  are  our  natural  allies?  Russia,  Prussia,  and  Den 
mark  are  despotisms,  we  are  told.  They  are  so ;  but  yet  so  beau 
tiful  and  so  perfect  is  the  harmony  of  interests  under  a  natural 
system,  that  that  which  despots  do  in  their  own  defence  strengthens 
the  people,  and  carries  them  on  toward  freedom.  Denmark  is  a 
despotism,  and  yet  her  people  are  the  freeest  and  most  happy  of 
any  in  Europe.  It  is  time  that  we  emancipated  ourselves  from 
"  the  tyranny  of  words"*  under  which  we  live,  and  looked  to 
things.  England  has  what  is  called  a  free  government,  and  yet 
Ireland,  the  West  Indies,  and  India  have  been  prostrated  under 
the  despotism  of  the  spindle  and  loom,  while  despotic  Denmark 
protects  her  people  against  that  tyranny,  and  thus  enables  her  wo 
men  and  her  children  to  find  other  employments  than  those  of  the 
field.  The  King  of  Prussia  desires  to  strengthen  himself  against 
France,  Austria,  and  Russia;  and,  to  do  this,  he  strengthens  his 
people  by  enabling  them  to  find  employment  for  all  their  time,  to 
find  manure  for  their  farms,  and  to  find  employment  for  their 
minds ;  and  he  strengthens  Germany  by  the  formation  of  a  great 
Union,  that  gives  to  thirty  millions  of  people  the  same  advantage  of 
freedom  of  internal  trade  that  subsists  among  ourselves.  The  Em 
peror  of  Russia  desires  to  strengthen  himself,  and  he,  in  like  man 
ner,  adopts  measures  leading  to  the  building  of  towns,  the  diversi 
fication  of  labour,  and  the  habit  of  association  among  men;  and 
thus  does  he  give  value  to  land  and  labour.  He  is  a  despot,  it  is 
true,  but  he  is  doing  what  is  required  to  give  freedom  to  sixty 

*  Rev.  Sidnej  Smith. 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  381 

millions  of  people ;  while  all  the  measures  of  England  in  India 
tend  to  the  enslavement  of  a  hundred  millions.  We  are  told  of  his 
designs  upon  Turkey — but  what  have  the  people  of  that  country  to 
lose  by  incorporation  within  the  Russian  Empire  ?  Now,  they  are 
poor  and  enslaved,  but  were  they  once  Russian  the  spindle  would 
be  brought  to  the  wool,  towns  would  cease  to  decline,  labour 
and  land  would  acquire  value,  and  the  people  would  begin  to  be 
come  free.  It  may  be  doubted  if  any  thing  would  so  much 
tend  to  advance  the  cause  of  freedom  in  Europe  as  the  absorption 
of  Turkey  by  Russia,  for  it  would  probably  be  followed  by  the 
adoption  of  measures  that  would  secure  perfect  freedom  of  trade 
throughout  all  Middle  and  Eastern  Europe,  with  large  increase  in 
the  value  of  man.  The  real  despotism  is  that  which  looks  to 
cheapening  labour,  and  the  real  road  to  freedom  is  that  which  looks 
toward  raising  the  value  of  labour  and  land. 

The  natural  allies  of  this  country  are  the  agricultural  nations  of 
the  world,  for  their  interests  and  ours  look  in  the  same  direction, 
while  those  of  England  look  in  one  directly  opposite.  They  and 
we  need  that  the  prices  of  all  agricultural  products  should  be  high, 
and  those  of  manufactured  articles  low,  while  England  desires  that 
the  latter  may  be  high  and  the  former  low.  That  they  and  we  may 
be  gratified,  it  is  required  that  machinery  shall  take  its  place  by 
the  food  and  the  wool ;  that  towns  shall  arise,  and  that  man  shall 
everywhere  become  strong  and  free.  That  she  may  be  gratified,  it 
is  required  that  the  food  and  the  wool  shall  go  to  the  spindle  and 
the  loom ;  that  men,  women,  and  children  shall  be  confined  to  the 
labours  of  the  field,  and  that  men  shall  remain  poor,  ignorant,  and 
enslaved.  The  more  Russia  makes  a  market  for  her  wheat,  the 
higher  will  be  its  price,  to  the  great  advantage  of  the  farmers  of 
the  world ;  and  the  more  cotton  and  sugar  she  will  require,  and  the 
higher  will  be  their  prices,  to  the  great  advantage  of  the  planters  of 
the  world.  The  more  Germany  makes  a  market  for  her  wool,  the 
higher  will  be  its  price,  and  the  cheaper  will  be  cloth,  and  the  more 
cotton  and  sugar  she  will  need.  The  more  we  make  a  market  for 
cotton,  the  better  will  it  be  for  the  people  of  India ;  and  the  more 
we  consume  our  own  grain,  the  better  will  it  be  for  the  farmers  of 


882 

Germany.  Our  interests  and  theirs  are  one  and  the  same  ;  but  it 
is  to  the  interest  of  the  British  manufacturer  to  have  all  the  world 
competing  with  each  other  to  sell  in  his  one  limited  market,  and 
the  more  competition  he  can  create,  the  cheaper  will  be  products 
of  the  plough,  and  the  larger  will  be  the  profits  of  the  loom.  He 
wishes  to  buy  cheaply  the  things  we  have  to.  sell,  and  to  sell  dearly 
those  we  have  to  buy.  We  wish  to  sell  dearly  and  buy  cheaply, 
and  as  our  objects  are  directly  the  reverse  of  his,  it  would  be  as 
imprudent  for  us  to  be  advised  by  him,  as  it  would  be  for  the 
farmer  to  enter  into  a  combination  with  the  railroad  for  the  pur 
pose  of  keeping  up  the  price  of  transportation. 

Russia  and  Germany,  Denmark,  Spain,  and  Belgium  are  engaged 
in  resisting  a  great  system  of  taxation,  and  they  grow  rich  and 
strong,  and  therefore  their  people  become  from  year  to  year  more 
free.  Portugal  and  India,  Turkey  and  Ireland  yield  to  the  system, 
and  they  become  from  year  to  year  poorer  and  weaker,  and  their 
people  more  enslaved.  It  is  on  the  part  of  the  former  a  war  for 
peace,  and  fortunately  it  is  a  war  that  involves  no  expense  for  fleets 
and  armies,  and  one  under  which  both  wealth  and  population  grow 
with  great  rapidity — and  one,  therefore,  in  which  we  may,  and 
must,  unite,  if  we  desire  to  see  the  termination  of  the  slave  trade 
at  home  or  abroad. 

Russia  and  Germany,  Denmark,  Spain,  and  Belgium  are  engaged 
in  an  effort  to  raise  the  value  of  man  at  home,  wherever  that  home 
may  be,  and  thus  to  stop  the  forced  export  of  men,  whether  black, 
brown,  or  white.  England  is  engaged  in  an  effort  to  destroy  every 
where  the  value  of  man  at  home,  and  therefore  it  is  that  the  slave 
trade  flourishes  in  the  countries  that  submit  to  her  system.  We 
desire  to  increase  the  value  of  man  in  Virginia,  and  thus  to  ter 
minate  the  domestic  slave  trade.  We  desire  that  corn  and  cotton, 
rice,  sugar,  and  tobacco  may  be  high,  and  cloth  and  iron  low;  that 
labour  may  be  largely  paid,  and  that  man  may  become  free ;  and 
the  less  our  dependence  on  the  market  of  England,  the  sooner  will 
our  desires  be  gratified. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  883 

Are  we  then  to  adopt  a  system  of  measures  tending  to  the  injury 
of  the  people  of  England  ?  By  no  means.  Her  real  interests  and 
ours  are  the  same,  and  by  protecting  ourselves  against  her  system, 
we  are  benefiting  her.  The  harmony  of  interests  is  so  perfect,  that 
nations  cannot  be  benefited  by  measures  tending  to  the  injury  of 
other  nations  ]  and  when  they  allow  themselves  to  be  led  away  by 
the  belief  that  they  can  be  so,  they  are  always  themselves  the  hea 
viest  sufferers.  The  sooner  that  all  the  agricultural  communities  of 
the  earth  shall  come  to  an  understanding  that  it  is  to  their  interest 
to  withdraw  from  the  present  insane  contest  for  the  privilege  of  sup 
plying  a  single  and  limited  market,  and  determine  to  create  markets 
for  themselves,  the  sooner  will  the  English  labourer,  land-owner, 
and  capitalist  find  themselves  restored  to  freedom.  That  the  reader 
may  understand  this,  we  must  look  once  more  to  Ireland.  The 
closing  of  the  demand  for  labour  in  that  country  drove  the  poor 
people  to  England  in  search  of  employment.  "  For  half  a  century 
back" — that  is,  since  the  Union — "  the  western  shores  of  our  island," 
says  a  British  journalist — 

"  Especially  Lancashire  and  Glasgow,  have  been  flooded  with 
crowds  of  half  clad,  half  fed,  half  civilized  Celts,  many  thousands  of 
whom  have  settled  permanently  in  our  manufacturing  towns,  reducing 
wages  by  their  competition,  and  what  is  worse,  reducing  the  standard 
of  living  and  comfort  among  our  people  by  their  example — spreading 
squalor  and  disease  by  their  filthy  habits — inciting  to  turbulence  and 
discontent  by  their  incorrigible  hostility  to  law,  incalculably  increas 
ing  the  burden  of  our  poor  rates — and  swelling  the  registry  of  crime, 
both  in  police  courts  and  assizes,  to  the  great  damage  of  the  national 
character  and  reputation.  The  abundant  supply  of  cheap  labour 
which  they  furnished  had  no  doubt  the  effect  of  enabling  our  manu 
facturing  industry  to  increase  at  a  rate  and  to  a  height  which,  with 
out  them,  would  have  been  unattainable  ;  and  so  far  they  have  been 
of  service." — North  British  Review,  No.  35. 

The  essential  error  of  this  passage  is  found  in  the  supposition 
that  any  set  of  people  or  any  species  of  industry,  is  to  profit 
by  the  cheapening  of  labour  and  the  enslavement  of  man.  No 
thing  of  this  kind  can  take  place.  The  true  interests  of  all  men 
are  promoted  by  the  elevation,  and  they  all  suffer  by  whatever 
tends  to  the  depression,  of  their  fellow-men.  The  master  of  slaves, 
whether  wearing  a  crown  or  carrying  a  whip,  is  himself  a  slave; 


384  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

and  that  such  is  the  case  with  nations  as  well  as  individuals,  the 
reader  may  perhaps  be  satisfied  if  he  will  follow  out  the  working 
of  the  British  system  as  here  described  by  the  reviewer.  For  half 
a  century  Irish  labour  has  been,  as  we  are  here  told,  poured  into 
England,  producing  a  glut  in  the  market,  and  lowering  not  only 
the  wages,  but  also  the  standard  of  comfort  among  English  la 
bourers.  This  is  quite  true;  but  why  did  these  men  come?  Be 
cause  labour  was  cheaper  in  Ireland  than  in  England.  Why  was 
it  so  ?  Because,  just  half  a  century  since,  it  was  provided  by  the 
Act  of  Union  that  the  women  and  children  of  Ireland  should  either 
remain  idle  or  work  in  the  field.  Prior  to  the  centralization  by 
that  act  of  all  power  in  the  British  Parliament,  the  people  of  that 
country  had  been  vigorously  engaged  in  the  effort  to  produce  com 
petition  for  the  purchase  of  labour  at  home;  and  had  they  been 
permitted  to  continue  on  in  that  direction,  it  would  have  risen  to  a 
level  with  English  labour,  and  then  it  could  not  have  been  profit 
ably  exported.  This,  however,  they  w«re  not  permitted  to  do. 
Their  furnaces  and  factories  were  closed,  and  the  people  who 
•  worked  in  them  were  driven  to  England  to  seek  their  bread,  and 
wages  fell,  because  the  price  of  all  commodities,  labour  included, 
tends  to  a  level,  and  whatever  reduces  them  anywhere  tends  to 
reduce  them  everywhere.  The  price  of  English  labour  fell  be 
cause  the  Act  of  Union  had  diminished  the  value  of  that  of 
Ireland. 

If  we  desire  to  know  to  what  extent  it  had  this  effect,  we  must 
look  to  the  consequences  of  an  over-supply  of  perishable  articles. 
Of  all  commodities,  labour  is  the  most  perishable,  because  it  must  be 
sold  on  the  instant  or  it  is  wasted,  and  if  wasted,  the  man  who  has 
it  to  sell  may  perish  himself.  Now  we  know  that  an  over-supply  of 
even  iron,  equal  to  ten  per  cent.,  will  reduce  prices  thirty,  forty, 
or  fifty  per  cent.,  and  that  an  excess  of  a  single  hundred  thousand 
bales  in  the  crop  of  cotton  makes  a  difference  of  ten  per  cent,  upon 
three  millions  of  bales,  whereas  a  diminution  to  the  same  extent 
will  make  a  difference  of  ten  per  cent,  in  the  opposite  direction. 
Still  more  is  this  the  case  with  oranges  and  peaches,  which  must 
be  sold  at  once  or  wasted.  With  an  excess  in  the  supply  of  either, 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  385 

they  are  often  abandoned  as  not  worth  the  cost  of  gathering  and 
carrying  to  market.  A  small  excess  in  the  supply  of  men,  women, 
and  children  so  far  reduces  their  value  in  the  eyes  of  the  purchaser 
of  labour,  that  he  finds  himself,  as  now  in  England,  induced  to  re 
gard  it  as  a  mercy  of  Heaven  when  famine,  pestilence,  and  emigra 
tion  clear  them  out  of  his  way;  and  he  is  then  disposed  to  think 
that  the  process  "cannot  be  carried  too  far  nor  continued  too  long." 
Irish  labour,  having  been  cheapened  by  the  provisions  of  the 
Act  of  Union,  was  carried  to  the  market  of  England  for  sale,  and 
thus  was  produced  a  glut  of  the  most  perishable  of  all  commodities; 
and  the  effect  of  that  glut  must  have  been  a  diminution  in  the 
general  price  of  labour  in  England  that  far  more  than  compensated 
for  the  increased  number  of  labourers.  Admitting,  however,  that 
the  diminution  was  no  more  than  would  be  so  compensated,  it 
would  follow,  of  course,  that  the  quantity  of  wages  paid  after  a 
year's  immigration  was  the  same  that  it  had  previously  been. 
That  it  was  not,  and  could  not  have  been  so  great,  is  quite  cer 
tain  ',  but  it  is  not  needed  to  claim  more  than  that  there  was  no 
increase.  It  follows,  necessarily,  that  while  the  quantity  of  wages 
to  be  expended  in  England  against  food  and  clothing  remained  the 
same,  the  number  of  persons  among  whom  it  was  to  be  divided 
had  increased,  and  each  had  less  to  expend.  This  of  course  dimi 
nished  the  power  to  purchase  food,  and  to  a  much  greater  degree 
diminished  the  demand  for  clothing,  for  the  claims  of  the  sto 
mach  are,  of  all  others,  the  most  imperious.  The  reader  will  now 
see  that  the  chief  effect  thus  produced  by  cheap  labour  is  a  reduc 
tion  in  the  domestic  demand  for  manufactured  goods.  As  yet,  how- 
t$7er,  we  are  only  at  the  commencement  of  the  operation.  The 
men  who  had  been  driven  from  Ireland  by  the  closing  of  Irish 
factories,  had  been  consumers  of  food,*  but  as  they  could  no  longer 
consume  at  home,  it  became  now  necessary  that  that  food  should 
follow  them  to  England,  and  the  necessity  for  this  transportation 
tended  largely  to  diminish  the  prices  of  all  food  in  Ireland,  and 
of  course  the  value  of  labour  and  land.  Each  new  depression  in 


*  See  page  190,  ante. 
33 


386  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

the  price  of  labour  tended  to  swell  the  export  of  men,  and  the  larger 
that  export  the  greater  became,  of  course,  the  necessity  for  seek 
ing  abroad  a  market  for  food.  Irish  food  came  to  swell  the  sup 
ply,  but  the  English  market  for  it  did  not  grow,  because  the  greater 
the  glut  of  men,  the  smaller  became  the  sum  of  wages  to  be  laid 
out  against  food  j  and  thus  Irish  and  English  food  were  now  con 
tending  against  each  other,  to  the  injury  of  English  and  Irish 
labour  and  land.  The  lower  the  price  of  food  in  England,  the  less 
was  the  inducement  to  improve  the  land,  and  the  less  the  demand 
for  labour  the  less  the  power  to  buy  even  food,  while  the  power  to 
pay  for  clothing  diminished  with  tenfold  rapidity.  With  each 
step  in  this  direction  the  labourer  lost  more  and  more  the  control 
over  his  own  actions,  and  became  more  and  more  enslaved.  The 
decline  in  the  home  demand  for  manufactures  then  produced 
a  necessity  for  seeking  new  markets,  for  underworking  the  Hin 
doo,  and  for  further  cheapening  labour ;  and  the  more  labour  was 
cheapened  the  less  became  the  demand  for,  and  the  return  to  capi 
tal.  Laud,  labour,  and  capital  thus  suffered  alike  from  the  adoption 
of  a  policy  having  for  its  object  to  prevent  the  people  of  Ireland 
from  mining  coal,  making  iron,  or  availing  themselves  of  the  gra 
tuitous  services  of  those  powerful  agents  so  abundantly  provided 
by  nature  for  their  use. 

The  reader  may,  perhaps,  appreciate  more  fully  the  evil  effects 
of  this  course  upon  an  examination  of  the  reverse  side  of  the  picture. 
Let  us  suppose  that  the  Irishman  could  at  once  be  raised  from 
being  the  slave  of  the  landholder  to  becoming  a  freeman,  exercis 
ing  control  over  the  application  of  his  labour,  and  freely  discussing 
with  his  employer  what  should  be  his  reward, — and  see  what  would 
be  the  effect.  It  would  at  once  establish  counter-attraction,  and 
instead  of  a  constant  influx  of  people  from  Ireland  into  England, 
there  would  be  a  constant  afflux  to  that  country,  and  in  a  little 
time  the  whole  mass  of  Irish  labour  that  now  weighs  on  the  Eng 
lish  market  would  be  withdrawn,  and  wages  would  rise  rapidly. 
At  the  cost  of  the  landholder,  it  will  be  said.  On  the  contrary,  to 
his  profit.  The  Irishman  at  home,  fully  employed,  would  consume 
thrice  the  food  he  can  now  obtain,  and  Irish  food  would  at  once 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  387 

cease  to  press  on  the  English  market,  and  the  price  of  English  food 
would  rise.  This,  of  course,  would  offer  new  inducements  to  im 
prove  the  land,  and  this  would  make  a  demand  for  labour  and 
capital,  the  price  of  both  of  which  would  rise.  These  things, 
however,  it  will  be  said,  would  be  done  at  the  cost  of  the  manu 
facturer.  On  the  contrary,  to  his  advantage.  Ireland  now  con 
sumes  but  little  of  English  manufactures.  "No  one,"  says  the 
Quarterly  Review,  "  ever  saw  an  English  scarecrow  with  such 
rags"  as  are  worn  by  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  people  of 
Ireland.  Raise  the  value  of  Irishmen  at  home,  make  them  free, 
and  the  Irish  market  will  soon  require  more  manufactured  goods 
than  now  go  to  all  India.  Raise  the  value  of  man  in  Great  Britain, 
and  the  domestic  market  will  absorb  an  amount  of  commodities 
that  would  now  be  deemed  perfectly  incredible. 

How  can  this  be  done  for  Ireland  ?  By  the  same  process 
under  which  the  man  of  Germany,  Russia,  Denmark,  and  Spain  is 
now  passing  gradually  toward  freedom.  By  providing  that  she 
shall  be  protected  in  her  efforts  to  bring  the  consumer  to  the  side 
of  the  producer,  and  thus  be  enabled  to  provide  at  home  demand 
for  all  her  labour  and  all  her  food,  and  for  all  the  capital  now 
deemed  surplus  that  weighs  on  the  market  of  England.  It  will, 
however,  be  said  that  this  would  deprive  the  English  manufacturer 
of  the  market  he  now  has  in  that  country.  It  would  not.  He 
would  sell  more  in  value,  although  it  would  certainly  be  less  in 
bulk.  If  Ireland  spun  her  own  yarn  and  made  her  own  coarse 
cloths,  she  would  need  to  buy  fine  ones.  If  she  made  her  woollen 
cloth  she  could  afford  to  buy  silks.  If  she  made  her  own  pig-iron 
she  would  have  occasion  to  purchase  steam-engines.  If  she  mined 
her  own  coal  she  would  require  books  ]  and  the  more  her  own 
labourer  was  elevated  in  the  scale  of  material  comfort,  and  moral 
and  intellectual  improvement,  the  larger  would  be  her  demands  on 
her  neighbours  for  those  commodities  requiring  for  their  produc 
tion  the  exercise  of  mind,  to  their  advantage  as  well  as  her  own. 

The  error  in  the  whole  British  system  is,  that  it  looks  to  pre 
venting  everywhere  local  association  and  local  commerce ;  and  this 
it  does  because  it  seeks  to  locate  in  England  the  workshop  of  the 


388  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

world.  The  natural  effect  of  this  is  a  desire  to  compel  all  nations 
to  transport  their  products  to  market  in  their  rudest  form,  at 
greatest  cost  to  themselves,  and  greatest  exhaustion  of  their  land ; 
and  the  poorer  they  become,  the  greater  are  her  efforts  at  com 
peting  with  them  in  the  rudest  manufactures,  to  the  great  injury 
of  her  own  people.  The  man  who  is  constantly  competing'  with 
men  below  himself,  will  be  sure  eventually  to  fall  to  their  level ; 
whereas,  he  who  looks  upward  and  determines  upon  competition 
with  those  who  are  above  him,  will  be  very  likely  to  rise  to  their 
level.  If  all  the  world  were  engaged  in  perfecting  their  products, 
the  standard  of  man  would  be  everywhere  rising,  and  the  power  to 
purchase  would  grow  everywhere,  with  rapid  increase  in  the  amount 
of  both  internal  and  external  commerce,  but  the  commodities  ex 
changed  would  be  of  a  higher  character — such  as  would  require  for 
their  preparation  a  higher  degree  of  intellect.  At  present,  all  the 
nations  outside  of  England  are  to  be  stimulated  to  the  adoption  of 
a  system  that  affords  to  their  men,  women,  and  children  no  em 
ployment  but  that  of  the  rude  operations  of  the  field,  while  those  in 
England  are  to  be  kept  at  work  mining  coal,  making  pig-metal, 
and  converting  cotton  into  yarn ;  and  thus  the  tendency  of  the 
system  is  toward  driving  the  whole  people  of  the  world  into  pur 
suits  requiring  little  more  than  mere  brute  labour,  and  the  lowest 
grade  of  intellect,  to  the  destruction  of  commerce,  both  internal 
and  external.  The  more  this  is  carried  into  effect  the  more  must 
the  people  of  England  and  the  world  become  brutalized  and  en 
slaved,  and  the  greater  must  be  the  spread  of  intemperance  and 
immorality.  To  this,  Ireland,  India,  and  all  other  countries  that 
find  themselves  forced  to  press  their  products  on  the  English 
market,  are  largely  contributing,  and  the  only  people  that  are  doing 
any  thing  for  its  correction  are  those  who  are  labouring  to  make  a 
market  at  home  for  their  products,  and  thus  diminish  the  compe 
tition  for  their  sale  in  the  English  market.  Were  Germany  and 
Russia  now  to  abolish  protection,  the  direct  effect  would  be  to 
throw  upon  England  an  immense  amount  of  food  they  now  con 
sume  at  home,  and  thus  diminish  the  price  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
render  it  impracticable  to  apply  labour  to  the  improvement  of  Eng- 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  389 

lish  land.  This  would  of  course  diminish  the  wages  of  English 
labour,  and  diminish  the  power  of  the  labourers  to  purchase  manu 
factured  goods,  and  the  diminution  thus  produced  in  the  domestic 
demand  would  be  twice  as  great  as  the  increase  obtained  abroad. 
It  is  time  that  the  people  of  England  should  learn  that  the  laws 
which  govern  the  community  of  nations  are  precisely  the  same  as 
those  which  govern  communities  of  individuals,  and  that  neither 
nations  nor  individuals  can  benefit  permanently  by  any  measures 
tending  to  the  injury  of  their  neighbours.  The  case  of  Ireland  is 
one  of  oppression  more  grievous  than  is  to  be  found  elsewhere  in 
the  records  of  history;  and  oppression  has  brought  its  punishment 
in  the  enslavement  of  the  English  labourer,  land-owner,  and  capi 
talist.  The  first  has  small  wages,  the  second  small  rents,  and  the 
third  small  profits,  while  the  intermediate  people,  bankers,  lawyers, 
and  agents,  grow  rich.  The  remedy  for  much  of  this  would  be 
found  in  the  adoption  of  measures  that  would  raise  the  value  of 
labour,  capital,  and  land,  in  Ireland,  and  thus  permit  the  two  former 
to  remain  at  home  to  give  value  to  the  last. 

The  evil  under  which  the  people  of  England  labour  is  that  the^ 
are  borne  down  under  the  weight  of  raw  produce  forced  into  their 
market,  and  the  competition  for  its  sale.  This,  in  turn,  reacts 
upon  the  world — as  prices  in  that  market  fix  the  prices  of  all  other 
markets.  "What  is  now  needed  is  to  raise  there  the  price  of  labour 
and  its  products,  as  would  at  once  be  done  were  it  possible  for  all  the 
agricultural  nations  to  become  so  much  masters  of  their  own  actions 
as  to  be  able  to  say  that  from  this  time  forward  they  would  have 
such  a  demand  at  home  as  would  free  them  from  the  slavery  inci 
dent  to  a  necessity  for  going  to  that  market.  Could  that  now  be  said, 
the  instant  effect  would  be  so  to  raise  the  price  of  food  as  to  make 
a  demand  for  labour  and  capital  in  England  that  would  double  the 
price  of  both,  as  will  be  seen  on  an  examination  of  the  following 
facts.  The  United  Kingdom  contains  seventy  millions  of  acres, 
and  an  average  expenditure  of  only  three  days'  labour  per  acre,  at 
12s.  per  week,  would  amount  to  twenty-one  millions  of  pounds,  or 
half  as  much  as  the  whole  capital  engaged  in  the  cotton  trade. 
No  one  who  studies  the  reports  on  the  agriculture  of  the  British 

33* 


390 

islands  can  doubt  that  even  a  larger  quantity  might  annually,  and 
most  profitably,  be  employed  on  the  land;  and  when  we  reflect  that 
this  would  be  repeated  year  after  year,  it  will  be  seen  how  large  a 
market  would  thus  be  made  for  both  labour  and  capital.  The  rise 
of  wages  would  put  an  end  to  the  export  of  men  from  either  Eng 
land  or  Ireland,  and  the  increase  in  the  home  demand  for  manu 
factures  would  be  great. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  rise  in  the  price  of  food  would  give 
large  rents,  without  improvement  in  the  land,  and  that  the  profit 
of  this  change  would  go  to  the  land-owner.  In  all  other  trades, 
however,  high  wages  compel  improvements  of  machinery,  and  it  is 
only  when  they  are  low  that  men  can  profitably  work  old  ma 
chines.  Were  the  wages  of  England  this  day  doubled,  it  would 
be  found  that  they  would  eat  up  the  whole  proceeds  of  all  badly 
farmed  land,  leaving  no  rent,  and  then  the  owners  of  such  land 
would  find  themselves  as  much  obliged  to  improve  their  machinery 
of  production  as  are  the  mill-owners  of  Manchester.  If  they 
could  not  improve  the  whole,  they  would  find  themselves  compelled 
to  sell  a  part;  and  thus  dear  labour  would  produce  division  of  the 
land  and  emancipation  of  the  labourer,  as  cheap  labour  has  produced 
the  consolidation  of  the  one  and  the  slavery  of  the  other. 

To  enable  Russia  and  Germany  to  refrain  from  pressing  their 
products  on  the  market  that  now  regulates  and  depresses  prices,  it 
would  be  required  that  they  should  have  great  numbers  of  mills 
and  furnaces,  at  which  their  now  surplus  food  could  be  consumed, 
and  their  effect  would  be  to  create  among  them  a  new  demand  for 
labour  with  rise  of  wages,  a  better  market  for  food  to  the  benefit 
of  the  farmer,  a  better  market  for  capital,  and  a  greatly  increased 
power  to  improve  the  land  and  to  make  roads  and  build  schools. 
This  would,  of  course,  make  demand  for  cotton,  to  the  benefit  of 
the  cotton-grower,  while  improved  prices  for  food  would  benefit  the 
farmer  everywhere.  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  the  Carolinas,  too, 
would  then  have  their  factories,  at  which  food  and  cotton  would 
be  converted  into  cloth,  and  the  value  of  man  in  those  States 
would  rise  to  a  level  with  that  of  Mississippi  and  Alabama — and 
our  domestic  slave  trade  would  be  brought-  to  an  end  by  precisely 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  391 

the  same  measures  that  would  relieve  England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland 
from  any  necessity  for  exporting  men  to  distant  regions  of  the  earth. 

Nothing  of  this  kind  could  at  once  be  done;  but  Russia,  Ger 
many,  and  other  countries  of  Europe  are  now,  under  protection, 
doing  much  toward  it ;  and  it  is  in  the  power  of  the  people  of  this 
•country  to  contribute  largely  toward  bringing  about  such  a  state 
of  things.  Much  was  being  done  under  the  tariff  of  1842,  but 
it  is  being  undone  under  the  act  of  1846.  The  former  tended 
to  raise  the  value  of  man  at  home,  and  hence  it  was  that  under 
it  the  domestic  slave  trade  so  much  diminished.  The  latter  tends 
to  diminish  the  value  of  man  at  home,  and  hence  it  is  that  under 
it  that  trade  so  rapidly  increases.  The  former  tended  to  diminish 
the  quantity  of  food  to  be  forced  on  the  market  of  England,  to  the 
deterioration  of  the  value  of  English  labour  and  land.  The  latter 
tends  to  increase  the  quantity  for  which  a  market  must  be  sought 
abroad ;  and  whatever  tends  to  force  food  into  that  country  tends 
to  lessen  the  value  of  its  people,  and  to  produce  their  forced  export 
to  other  countries.  As  yet,  however,  we  have  arrived  only  at  the 
commencement  of  the  working  of  the  "free  trade"  system.  We 
are  now  where  we  were  in  1836,  when  the  making  of  railroads  by 
aid  of  large  purchases,  on  credit,  of  cloth  and  iron,  stimulated  the 
consumption  of  food  and  diminished  the  labour  applied  to  its  pro 
duction.  After  the  next  revulsion,  now  perhaps  not  far  distant,  the 
supply  of  food  will  be  large,  and  then  it  will  be  that  the  low  prices 
of  1841-2,  for  both  food  and  labour,  will  be  repeated. 

In  considering  what  is  the  duty  of  this  country,  every  man 
should  reflect  that  whatever  tends  to  increase  the  quantity  of  raw 
produce  forced  on  the  market  of  England,  tends  to  the  cheapening 
of  labour  and  land  everywhere,  to  the  perpetuation  of  slavery,  and 
to  the  extension  of  its  domain — and  that  whatever  tends  to  the 
withdrawal  of  such  produce  from  that  market  tends  to  raising 
the  value  of  land  and  labour  everywhere,  to  the  extinction  of 
slavery,  and  to  the  elevation  of  man. 

The  system  commonly  called  free  trade  tends  to  produce  the 
former  results ;  and  where  man  is  enslaved  there  can  be  no  real 
freedom  of  trade.  That  one  which  looks  to  protection  against  this 


392  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

extraordinary  system  of  taxation,  tends  to  enable  men  to  deter 
mine  for  themselves  whether  they  will  make  their  exchanges  , 
abroad  or  at  home ;  and  it  is  in  this  power  of  choice  that  consists 
the  freedom  of  trade  and  of  man.  By  adopting  the  "  free  trade," 
or  British,  system  we  place  ourselves  side  by  side  with  the  men 
who  have  ruined  Ireland  and  India,  and  are  now  poisoning  and 
enslaving  the  Chinese  people.  By  adopting  the  other,  we  place 
ourselves  by  the  side  of  those  whose  measures  tend  not  only  to 
the  improvement  of  their  own  subjects,  but  to  the  emancipation 
of  the  slave  everywhere,  whether  in  the  British  Islands,  India, 
Italy,  or  America. 

It  will  be  said,  however,  that  protection  tends  to  destroy  com 
merce,  the  civilizer  of  mankind.  Directly  the  reverse,  however, 
is  the  fact.  It  is  the  system  now  called  free  trade  that  tends  to 
the  destruction  of  commerce,  as  is  shown  wherever  it  obtains. 
Protection  looks  only  to  resisting  a  great  scheme  of  foreign  taxa 
tion  that  everywhere  limits  the  power  of  man  to  combine  his  efforts 
with  those  of  his  neighbour  man  for  the  increase  of  his  produc 
tion,  the  improvement  of  his  mind,  and  the  enlargement  of  his 
desires  for,  and  his  power  to  procure,  the  commodities  produced 
among  the  different  nations  of  the  world.  The  commerce  of  India 
does  not  grow,  nor  does  that  of  Portugal,  or  of  Turkey ;  but  that 
of  the  protected  countries  does  increase,  as  has  been  shown  in  the 
case  of  Spain,  and  can  now  be  shown  in  that  of  Germany.  In  1834, 
before  the  formation  of  the  Zoll-  Verein,  Germany  took  from  Great 
Britain,  of  her  own  produce  and  manufactures,  only  £4,429,727 

Whereas  in  1852  she  took £7,694,059 

And  as  regards  this  country,  in  which  protection  has  always 
to  some  extent  existed,  it  is  the  best  customer  that  England  ever 
had,  and  our  demands  upon  her  grow  most  steadily  and  regularly 
under  protection,  because  the  greater  our  power  to  make  coarse 
goods,  the  greater  are  those  desires  which  lead  to  the  purchase  of 
fine  ones,  "and  the  greater  our  ability  to  gratify  them. 

Whatever  tends  to  increase  the  power  of  man  to  associate  with 
his  neighbour  man,  tends  to  promote  the  growth  of  commerce,  and 
to  produce  that  material,  moral,  and  intellectual  improvement  which 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  893 

leads  to  freedom.  To  enable  men  to  exercise  that  power  is  the 
object  of  protection.  The  men  of  this  country,  therefore,  who 
desire  that  all  men,  black,  white,  and  brown,  shall  at  the  earliest 
period  enjoy  perfect  freedom  of  thought,  speech,  action,  and  trade, 
will  find,  on  full  consideration,  that  duty  to  themselves  and  to  their 
fellow-men  requires  that  they  should  advocate  efficient  protection, 
as  the  true  and  only  mode  of  abolishing  the  domestic  trade  in 
slaves,  whether  black  or  white. 


It  will,  perhaps,  be  said  that  even  although  the  slave  trade  were 
abolished,  slavery  would  still  continue  to  exist,  and  that  the  great 
object  of  the  anti-slavery  movement  would  remain  unaccomplished. 
One  step,  at  all  events,  and  a  great  one,  would  have  been  made. 
To  render  men  adscripti  ylelde,  thus  attaching  them  to  the  soil, 
has  been  in  many  countries,  as  has  so  recently  been  the  case  in 
Hussia,  one  of  the  movements  toward  emancipation ;  and  if  this 
could  be  here  effected  by  simple  force  of  attraction,  and  without  the 
aid  of  law,  it  would  be  profitable  to  all,  both  masters  and  slaves; 
because  whatever  tends  to  attract  population  tends  inevitably  to 
increase  the  value  of  land,  and  thus  to  enrich  its  owner.  There, 
however,  it  could  not  stop,  as  the  reader  will  readily  see.  Cheap 
food  enables  the  farmer  of  Virginia  to  raise  cheap  labour  for  the 
slave  market.  Raise  the  price  of  food,  and  the  profit  of  that  spe 
cies  of  manufacture  would  diminish.  Raise  it  still  higher,  and 
the  profit  would  disappear ;  and  then  would  the  master  of  slaves 
find  it  necessary  to  devolve  upon  the  parent  the  making  of  the 
sacrifice  required  for  the  raising  of  children,  and  thus  to  enable 
him  to  bring  into  activity  all  the  best  feelings  of  the  heart. 

Cheap  food  and  slavery  go  together;  and  if  we  desire  to  free 
ourselves  from  the  last,  we  must  commence  by  ridding  ourselves 
of  the  first.  Food  is  cheap  in  Virginia,  because  the  market  for  it 
is  distant,  and  most  of  its  value  there  is  swallowed  up  in  the  cost 
of  transportation.  Bring  the  consumer  close  to  the  door  of  the 
farmer,  and  it  will  be  worth  as  much  there  as  it  now  commands  in 
the  distant  market.  Make  a  demand  everywhere  around  him  for 
all  the  food  that  is  raised,  and  its  value  will  everywhere  rise,  for 


394  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

then  we  shall  cease  to  press  upon  the  limited  market  of  England, 
which  fixes  the  price  of  our  crop,  and  is  now  borne  down  by  the 
surplus  products  of  Germany  and  Russia,  Canada  and  ourselves ; 
and  the  price  will  then  be  higher  in  the  remote  parts  of  Virginia 
than  can  now  be  obtained  for  it  in  the  distant  market  of  England. 
It  will  then  become  quite  impossible  for  the  farmer  profitably  to 
feed  his  corn  to  slaves. 

With  the  rise  in  the  price  of  food  the  land  would  quadruple  in 
value,  and  that  value  would  continue  to  increase  as  the  artisan 
more  and  more  took  his  place  by  the  side  of  the  producer  of  food 
and  wool,  and  as  towns  increased  in  number  and  in  size ;  and  with 
each  step  in  this  direction  the  master  would  attach  less  importance 
to  the  ownership  of  slaves,  while  the  slave  would  attach  more  im 
portance  to  freedom.  With  both,  the  state  of  feeling  would  im 
prove;  and  the  more  the  negro  was  improved  the  more  his  master 
would  be  disposed  to  think  of  slavery,  as  was  thought  of  old  by 
Jefferson  and  Madison,  that  it  was  an  evil  that  required  to  be 
abated ;  and  the  more  rapid  the  growth  of  wealth,  the  greater  the 
improvement  in  the  value  of  land,  the  more  rapid  would  be  the 
approach  of  freedom  to  all,  the  master  and  the  slave. 

It  will  be  said,  however,  that  if  food  should  so  much  increase  in 
value  as  to  render  it  desirable  for  Virginia  to  retain  the  whole 
growth  of  her  population,  black  and  white,  the  necessary  effect 
would  be  a  great  rise  in  the  price  of  cotton,  and  a  great  increase 
in  the  wealth  of  the  planters  further  South,  who  would  be  desirous 
to  have  negroes,  even  at  greatly  increased  prices.  That  the  price 
of  cotton  would  rise  is  quite  certain.  Nothing  keeps  it  down  but 
the  low  price  of  food,  which  forces  out  the  negroes  of  the  Northern 
States,  and  thus  maintains  the  domestic  slave  trade ;  and  there  is 
no  reason  to  doubt  that  not  only  would  there  be  a  large  increase  in 
its  price,  but  that  the  power  to  pay  for  it  would  increase  with  equal 
rapidity.  More  negro  labour  would  then  certainly  be  needed,  and 
then  would  exist  precisely  the  state  of  things  that  leads  inevitably 
to  freedom.  When  two  masters  seek  one  labourer,  the  latter  be 
comes  free ;  but  when  two  labourers  seek  one  master,  the  former 
become  enslaved.  The  increased  value  of  negro  labour  would  ren- 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  395 

der  it  necessary  for  the  owners  of  negroes  to  endeavour  to  stimulate 
the  labourer  to  exertion,  and  this  could  be  done  only  by  the  pay 
ment  of  wages  for  over-work,  as  is  even  now  done  to  a  great  extent. 
At  present,  the  labour  of  the  slave  is  in  a  high  degree  unproductive, 
as  will  be  seen  by  the  following  passage  from  a  letter  to  the  New 
York  Daily  Times,  giving  the  result  of  information  derived  from 
a  gentleman  of  Petersburgh,  Virginia,  said  to  be  "  remarkable  for 
accuracy  and  preciseness  of  his  information  :" — 

"  He  tells  me,"  says  the  writer,  "  he  once  very  carefully  observed 
how  much  labour  was  expended  in  securing  a  crop  of  very  thin  wheat, 
and  found  that  it  took  four  negroes  one  day  to  cradle,  rake,  and  bind 
one  acre.  (That  is,  this  was  the  rate  at  which  the  field  was  harvested.) 
In  the  wheat-growing  districts  of  Western  New  York,  four  men  would 
be  expected  to  do  five  acres  of  a  similar  crop. 

"  Mr.  Griscom  further  states,  as  his  opinion,  that  four  negroes  do 
not,  in  the  ordinary  agricultural  operations  of  this  State,  accomplish 
as  much  as  one  labourer  in  New  Jersey.  Upon  my  expressing  my  as 
tonishment,  he  repeated  it  as  his  deliberately  formed  opinion. 

"  I  have  since  again  called  on  Mr.  Griscom,  and  obtained  permission 
to  give  his  name  with  the  above  statement.  He  also  wishes  me  to  add, 
that  the  ordinary  waste  in  harvesting,  by  the  carelessness  of  the  negroes, 
above  that  which  occurs  in  the  hands  of  Northern  labourers,  is  large 
enough  to  equal  what  a  Northern  farmer  would  consider  a  satisfactory 
profit  on  the  crop." 

To  bring  into  activity  all  this  vast  amount  of  labour  now  wasted, 
it  is  needed  to  raise  the  cost  of  man,  by  raising  the  price  of  food ; 
and  that  is  to  be  done  by  bringing  the  farmer's  market  to  his  door, 
and  thus  giving  value  to  labour  and  land.  Let  the  people  of  Mary 
land  and  Virginia,  Carolina,  Kentucky,  and  Tennessee  be  enabled 
to  bring  into  activity  their  vast  treasures  of  coal  and  iron  ore,  and 
to  render  useful  their  immense  water-powers — free  the  masters 
from  their  present  dependence  on  distant  markets,  in  which  they 
must  sell  all  they  produce,  and  must  buy  all  they  consume — and 
the  negro  slave  becomes  free,  by  virtue  of  the  same  great  law  that 
in  past  times  has  freed  the  serf  of  England,  and  is  now  freeing  the 
serf  of  Russia.  In  all  countries  of  the  world  man  has  become  free 
as  land  has  acquired  value,  and  as  its  owners  have  been  enriched ; 
and  in  all  man  has  become  enslaved  as  laud  has  lost  its  value,  and 
its  owners  have  been  impoverished.* 

*  It  is  commonly  supposed  that  the  road  toward  freedom  lies  through  cheapen 
ing  the  products  of  slave  labour;  but  the  reader  may  readily  satisfy  himself  thai 


396  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 


CHAPTER  XXL 

OF   THE   DUTY   OF   THE   PEOPLE   OF   ENGLAND. 

THE  English  politico-economical  system  denounced  by  Adam 
Smith  had  not  failed  before  the  close  of  the  last  century  to  be 
productive  of  results  in  the  highest  degree  unfavourable  to  man ; 
and  to  account  for  them  it  became  necessary  to  discover  that  they 
were  the  inevitable  result  of  certain  great  natural  laws ;  and  to  this 
necessity  it  was  that  the  world  was  indebted  for  the  Ricardo-Mal- 
thusian  system,  which  may  be  briefly  stated  in  the  following 
propositions : — 

First :  That  in  the  commencement  of  cultivation,  when  popula 
tion  is  small  and  land  consequently  abundant,  the  best  soils — those 
capable  of  yielding  the  largest  return,  say  one  hundred  quarters  to 
a  given  quantity  of  labour — alone  are  cultivated. 

Second  :  That  with  the  progress  of  population,  the  fertile  lands 
are  all  occupied,  and  there  arises  a  necessity  for  cultivating  those 
yielding  a  smaller  return ;  and  that  resort  is  then  had  to  a  second, 
and  afterward  to  a  third  and  a  fourth  class  of  soils,  yielding  re 
spectively  ninety,  eighty,  and  seventy  quarters  to  the  same  quantity 
of  labour. 

Third  :  That  with  the  necessity  for  applying  labour  less  pro 
ductively,  which  thus  accompanies  the  growth  of  population,  rent 
arises :  the  owner  of  land  No.  1  being  enabled  to  demand  and  to 
obtain,  in  return  for  its  use,  ten  quarters  when  resort  is  had  to 
that  of  second  quality ;  twenty  when  No.  3  is  brought  into  use, 
and  thirty  when  it  becomes  necessary  to  cultivate  No.  4. 

it  is  in  that  direction  lies  slavery.  Freedom  grows  with  growing  wealth,  not  grow 
ing  poverty.  To  increase  the  cost  of  raising  slaves,  and  thus  to  increase  the  value 
of  man  at  home,  produces  exactly  the  effect  anticipated  from  the  other  course  of 
operation,  because  the  value  of  the  land  and  its  produce  grows  more  rapidly  than 
the  value  of  that  portion  of  the  negro's  powers  that  can  be  obtained  from  him  as 
a  slave — that  is,  without  the  payment  of  wages. 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  397 

Fourth  :  That  the  proportion  of  the  landlord  tends  thus  steadily 
to  increase  as  the  productiveness  of  labour  decreases,  the  division 
being  as  follows,  to  wit : — 


At  the  first  period,  when  No.  1  alone  is  cultivatec 

product.  Labour'    Rent- 

1         100    100      00 

"       second  period  " 

No.  1  and  2  are  cultivated  190     180       10 

"       third  period      " 

No.  1,  2,  and  3. 

"  270    240      30 

"       fourth  period    " 

No.  1,  2,  3  and  4. 

"  340    280      60 

"       fifth  period        " 

No.  1,  2,  3,  4,  and  5. 

"  400    300    100 

"       sixth  period      " 

No.  1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  and  6. 

"  450    300     150 

"       seventh  period  " 

No.  1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  and  7 

"  490    280    210 

and  that  there  is  thus  a  tendency  to  the  ultimate  absorption  of  the 
whole  produce  by  the  owner  of  the  land,  and  to  a  steadily  increas 
ing  inequality  of  condition ;  the  power  of  the  labourer  to  consume 
the  commodities  which  he  produces  steadily  diminishing,  while  that 
of  the  land-owner  to  claim  them,  as  rent,  is  steadily  increasing. 

Fifth  :  That  this  tendency  toward  a  diminution  in  the  return  of 
labour,  and  toward  an  increase  of  the  landlord's  proportion,  always 
exists  where  population  increases,  and  most  exists  where  popula 
tion  increases  most  rapidly ;  but  is  in  a  certain  degree  counteracted 
by  increase  of  wealth,  producing  improvement  of  cultivation. 

Sixth  :  That  every  such  improvement  tends  to  retard  the  growth 
of  rents,  while  every  obstacle  to  improvement  tends  to  increase  that 
growth :  and  that,  therefore,  the  interests  of  the  land-owner  and 
labourer  are  always  opposed  to  each  other,  rents  rising  as  labour 
falls,  and  vice  versa. 

A  brief  examination  of  these  propositions  will  satisfy  the  reader 
that  they  tend  inevitably  to  the  centralization  of  all  power  in  the 
hands  of  the  few  at  the  cost  of  the  many,  who  are  thus  reduced  to 
the  condition  of  slaves,  mere  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water 
for  their  masters,  as  will  now  be  shown. 

I.  In  the  commencement  of  cultivation  labour  is  largely  pro 
ductive,  and  the  labourer  takes  for  himself  the  whole  of  his  pro 
duct,  paying  no  rent. 

II.  With  the  increase  of  population,  and  the  increased  power  to 
associate,  labour  becomes  less  productive,  and  the  labourer  is  re- 

34 


398 

quired  to  give  a  part  of  the  diminished  product  to  the  land-owner, 
who  thus  grows  rich  at  his  expense. 

III.  With  further  growth  of  population  land  acquires  further 
value,  and  that  value  increases  with  every  increase  of  the  necessity 
for  applying  labour  less  productively ;  and  the  less  the  product,  the 
larger  becomes  the  proportion  of  the  proprietor,  whose  wealth  and 
power  increase  precisely  as  the  labourer  becomes  poorer  and  less 
able  to  defend  his  rights,  or,  in  other  words,  as  he  becomes  enslaved. 

This  state  of  things  leads  of  course  to  the  expulsion  of  poor 
men,  to  seek  at  a  distance  those  rich  soils  which,  according  to  the 
theory,  are  the  first  cultivated.  The  more  they  are  expelled,  the 
greater  must  of  course  be  the  consolidation  of  the  land,  the  larger 
the  income  of  the  few  great  farmers  and  land-owners,  and  the  poorer 
the  labourers.  Hence  universal  discord,  such  as  is  seen  in  Eng 
land,  and  has  recently  been  so  well  described  by  the  Times* 

The  poorer  the  people,  the  greater  must  be  the  necessity  for 
emigration ;  and  the  greater  the  anxiety  of  the  landed  or  other 
capitalist  for  their  expulsion,  because  they  are  thus  relieved  from 
the  necessity  for  supporting  them;  and  the  greater  the  rejoicing  of 
the  trader,  because  he  supposes  they  go  from  the  cultivation  of  poor 
to  that  of  rich  soils.  Here  we  have  dispersion,  the  opposite  of  that 
association  to  which  man  has  everywhere  been  indebted  for  his 
wealth ;  for  the  development  of  his  moral  and  intellectual  faculties, 
and  for  his  freedom. 

The  soils  left  behind  being  supposed  to  be  the  poor  ones,  and 
those  first  appropriated  abroad  being  supposed  to  be  the  rich  ones, 
it  is  next  held  that  all  the  people  who  go  abroad,  should  do  no 
thing  but  cultivate  the  land,  sending  their  corn  and  their  wool  to 
a  distance  of  thousands  of  miles  in  search  of  the  little  spindle  and 
the  loom ;  and  thus  does  the  Ricardo  system  lead  to  the  adoption 
of  a  policy  directly  the  reverse  of  that  taught  by  Adam  Smith. 

The  necessary  effect  of  this  is  the  discouragement  of  English 
agriculture,  and  the  closing  of  the  market  for  English  capital;  and 
the  smaller  the  market  for  it  at  home  the  less  must  be  the  demand 
for  labour,  and  the  greater  must  be  the  tendency  of  the  labourer 

*  See  page  280,  ante. 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  899 

to  become  the  mere  slave  of  those  who  do  employ  capital.  This 
of  course  produces  further  expulsion  of  both  labour  and  capital ; 
and  the  more  they  go  abroad,  the  less,  as  a  matter  of  course,  is  the 
power  of  the  community  that  is  left  behind  :  and  thus  the  Bicardo- 
Malthusian  system  tends  necessarily  to  the  diminution  of  the  im 
portance  of  the  nation  in  the  eyes  of  the  world. 

That  system  teaches  that  God  in  his  infinite  wisdom  has  given  to 
matter  in  the  form  of  man  a  reproductive  power  greater  than  he  has 
given  to  the  source  from  which  that  matter  is  derived,  the  earth  it 
self;  and  that,  with  a  view  to  the  correction  of  that  error,  man  must 
close  his  ear  and  his  heart  to  the  tale  of  suffering — must  forget  that 
great  law  of  Christ,  "  Do  unto  others  as  ye  would  that  others  should 
do  unto  you," — must  persuade  himself  that  it  is  <(  to  his  advantage" 
that  the  negro  slave  "  shall  wear  his  chains  in  peace," — and  must 
always  recollect  that  if  men  will  marry,  and  have  children,  and  he 
"  stands  between  the  error  and  its  consequence,"  granting  relief  to 
the  poor  or  the  sick  in  their  distress,  except  so  far  as  to  prevent 
"positive  death,"  he  "perpetuates  the  sin."  This  is  the  science 
of  repulsion,  despair,  and  death ;  and  it  has  been  well  denominated 
"the  dismal  science."  It  is  taught  in  many  of  the  schools  of 
Europe,  but  England  alone  has  made  it  the  basis  of  a  system  of 
policy }  and  the  result  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  throughout  all  that 
portion  of  the  world  subject  to  her  influence,  we  see  nothing  but 
repulsion,  slavery,  despair,  and  death,  with  steadily  increasing 
weakness  of  the  communities  in  the  general  system  of  the  world, 
as  witness  Ireland  and  India,  from  which  men  are  flying  as  from 
pestilence — the  West  Indies,*  Portugal,  and  Turkey,  in  all  of  which 

#  The  following  statement  of  the  operations  of  the  past  year  completes  the 
picture  presented  in  Chapter  IV. : — 

"  A  tabular  return,  prepared  by  order  of  the  House  of  Assembly  of  Jamaica, 
exhibiting  the  properties  in  that  island  '  upon  which  cultivation  has  been  wholly 
or  partially  abandoned  since  the  1st  day  of  January,  1852,'  presents  in  a  striking 
light  one  of  the  many  injurious  consequences  that  have  followed  the  measure  of 
negro  emancipation  in  the  British  West  Indies.  The  return,  which  is  dated 
January  27,  1853,  shows  that  128  sugar  estates  have  been  totally  abandoned 
during  the  year,  and  71  partially  abandoned;  of  coffee  plantations,  96  have  been 
totally,  and  66  partially,  abandoned;  of  country  seats — residences  of  planters  or 
their  agents — 30  have  been  totally,  and  22  partially,  abandoned.  The  properties 
thus  nearly  or  wholly  ruined  by  the  ill-considered  legislation  of  the  British  Par 
liament  cover  an  area  of  391,187  acres." 


400  THE    SLAVE   TRADE, 

population  declines,  and  the  communities  themselves  seem  likely 
soon  to  perish  of  inanition.  From  every  country  that  is  strong 
enough  to  protect  itself,  she  is  being  gradually  shut  out ;  and  in 
every  one  that  is  strong  enough  to  carry  into  effect  the  exclusion, 
we  see  a  steady  increase  of  the  power  and  the  habit  of  association, 
and  of  the  strength  of  the  nation.  The  little  German  Union  of 
1827  led  to  the  great  one  of  1835;  and  at  this  moment  we  have 
advices  of  the  completion  of  the  still  greater  one  that  is  to  give 
freedom  of  internal  trade  to  sixty  millions  of  people,  and  that  is  to 
do  for  all  Germany  what  the  Zott-  Verein  has  done  for  its  northern 
portion.  The  habit  of  peace  and  of  combined  action  thus  grows  in 
all  the  countries  of  the  world  which  protect  themselves,  while  re 
pulsion  and  discord  increase  in  every  one  that  is  unprotected.  In 
one  we  see  a  daily  tendency  toward  freedom,  while  in  the  other 
slavery  grows  from  day  to  day. 

It  is  the  complaint  of  England  that,  much  as  she  has  done  for 
other  countries,  she  receives  no  kindness  in  return.  She  stands 
at  this  day  without  a  friend;  and  this  is  not  so  much  the  fault  of 
any  error  of  intention  as  of  error  of  doctrine.  Many  of  those  who 
have  directed  her  affairs  have  been  men  of  generous  impulses — 
men  who  would  scorn  to  do  what  they  thought  to  be  wrong — but 
they  have  been  led  away  by  a  system  that  teaches  the  rankest  self 
ishness.  The  Creator  of  man  provided  for  his  use  great  natural 
agents,  the  command  of  which  was  to  be  obtained  as  the  reward 
of  the  cultivation  of  his  intellectual  powers;  and  that  he  might 
obtain  leisure  for  their  improvement,  great  stores  of  fuel  were  accu 
mulated,  and  iron  ore  was  furnished  in  unlimited  quantity,  to  en 
able  him,  by  combining  the  two,  to  obtain  machinery  to  aid  him 
in  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  and  the  conversion  of  its  products. 
England,  however,  desires  to  restrict  the  use  of  those  great  natural 
agents ;  and  whenever  or  wherever  other  nations  undertake  to  call 
them  to  their  aid,  she  is  seen  using  every  effort  in  her  power  to 
annihilate  competition,  and  thus  maintain  her  monopoly.  Of  this, 
the  recent  proceedings  in  relation  to  steam  intercourse  between 
this  country  and  Europe  present  a  striking  instance ;  but  the 
maintenance  of  numerous  colonies,  avowedly  for  the  purpose  of 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  401 

"  stifling  in  its  infancy"  every  effort  on  the  part  of  other  nations  to 
obtain  power  to  convert  their  coal  and  their  ore  into  iron,  or  to 
convert  their  iron  into  machinery  that  would  enable  them  to  com 
mand  the  aid  of  steam,  and  thus  lighten  the  labours  of  their  peo 
ple,  while  increasing  the  efficiency  of  their  exertions,  is  a  thing 
not  only  not  disavowed,  but  gloried  in  by  her  most  eminent  and 
enlightened  men.  The  exceeding  selfishness  of  this  effort  to  retain 
a  monopoly  of  those  great  natural  agents  should,  of  itself,  afford 
proof  conclusive  to  every  Englishman  that  the  system  that  is  to  be 
so  maintained  could  not  be  right ;  and  it  would  do  so,  were  it  nofc 
that  their  system  of  political  economy  teaches  that  every  man  must 
live  by  "  snatching  the  bread  from  his  neighbour's  mouth  •"  that 
the  land-owner  grows  rich  at  the  expense  of  the  labourer;  that 
profits  rise  only  at  the  cost  of  wages,  and  wages  only  at  the  cost  of 
profits ;  and,  therefore,  that  the  only  way  to  ensure  a  fair  rate  for 
the  use  of  capital  is  to  keep  the  price  of  labour  down. 

This  system  is  to  be  carried  out  by  producing  "  unlimited  com 
petition  ;"  and  in  what  is  it  to  exist  ?  In  the  sale  of  labour ;  and 
the  greater  that  competition,  the  greater  will  be  the  profits  of  the 
capitalist,  and  the  lower  will  be  the  wages  of  the  labourer.  The 
more  the  competition  for  the  sale  of  cotton,  the  cheaper  will  be 
the  labourer  who  produces  it ;  and  the  more  perfect  the 
monopoly  of  machinery,  the  cheaper  must  be  the  labourer  who 
performs  the  work  of  spinning  the  wool  and  weaving  the  cloth, 
but  the  larger  will  be  the  share  of  the  man  who  owns  the  spindles 
and  the  looms.  The  fewer  the  spindles  and  looms  of  the  world, 
the  cheaper  will  be  cotton  and  the  dearer  will  be  cloth,  and  the 
greater  the  profits  of  what  is  called  capital ;  but  the  less  will  be 
the  value  of  the  stock  in  that  great  bank  from  which  all  capital  is 
derived — the  earth ;  and  the  poorer  and  more  enslaved  must  be  all 
those  who  have  shares  in  it,  and  all  who  desire  to  obtain  loans  from 
it — the  land-owners  and  the  labourers.  Such  being  the  tendencies 
of  the  system,  need  we  wonder  that  it  produces  repulsion  abroad, 
or  that  England  is  now  so  entirely  without  friends  that  in  this  age 
of  the  world — one  that  should  be  so  enlightened — she  talks  of 
increased  armaments  with  a  view  to  defending  herself  from  inva- 

34* 


402  THE    SLAVE    TRADE, 

sion,  and  calls  on  other  nations  for  help?  Certainly  not.  Were 
it  otherwise,  it  would  be  wonderful.  She  is  expelling  her  whole 
people  from  the  land,  and  the  more  they  go,  the  more  she  is  rejoiced. 
"  Extensive  as  has  been  the  emigration  from  Ireland  which  has 
already  taken  place,  there  is,"  we  are  told — 

"  A  remarkable  proof  that  it  has  not  been  carried  too  far.  There  is 
still  no  regular  demand  for  labour  in  the  West  of  Ireland,  and  wages 
are  still  at  the  low  starvation  rate  which  prevailed  before  the  famine." 
—Economist,  (London,)  Feb.  12,  1853. 

Again,  we  are  told  that 

"  The  departure  of  the  redundant  population  of  the  Highlands  of 
Scotland  is  an  indispensable  preliminary  to  every  kind  of  improve 
ment."—  Ibid. 

Further,  we  are  informed  that  the  emigration  from  England, 
Wales,  and  the  Lowlands  of  Scotland  has  "  almost  entirely  con 
sisted  of  able-bodied  agricultural  labourers/'  and  that  few  or  none 
of  the  manufacturing  population  have  emigrated,  except  "  a  few 
Spitalfields  and  Paisley  hand-loom  weavers."*  The  loss  of  all 
these  agriculturists,  and  the  rapid  conversion  of  the  whole  people 
of  the  kingdom  into  mere  buyers  and  sellers  of  the  products  of 
other  nations,  is  regarded  as  not  only  not  to  be  regretted,  but  as  a 
thing  to  be  rejoiced  at  j  and  another  influential  journal  assures  its 
readers  that  the  "mere  anticipation"  of  any  deficiency  in  the  ex 
port  of  man  from  the  kingdom  "  would  lead  to  the  most  disastrous 
suspension  of  industry  and  enterprise,"  and  that  "  the  emigration 
must  not  only  continue,  but  it  must  be  maintained  with  all  possi 
ble  steadiness  and  activity."-)" 

Little  effort  would  seem  to  be  required  to  bring  about  the 
abandonment  of  England,  as  well  as  of  Ireland.  Of  the  latter  the 
latest  journals  furnish  accounts  of  which  the  following  is  a  fair 
specimen  : — 

"  The  people  are  fast  passing  away  from  the  land  in  the  "West  of 
Ireland.  The  landlords  of  Cormaught  are  tacitly  combined  to  weed 
out  all  the  smaller  occupiers,  against  whom  a  regular  systematic  war 
of  extermination  is  being  waged.  *  *  *  The  most  heart-rending 

*  Economist,  (London,)  Feb.  12, 1853.  |  Spectator,  Feb.  12, 1853. 


DOMESTIC    AND   FOREIGN.  403 

cruelties  are  daily  practised  in  this  province,  of  which  the  public  are 
not  at  all  aware/' — Galway  Mercury. 

In  the  former,  we  are  told  that 

"  The  wheel  of  '  improvement'  is  now  seizing  another  class,  the 
most  stationary  class  in  England.  A  startling  emigration  movement 
has  sprung  up  among  the  smaller  English  farmers,  especially  those 
holding  heavy  clay  soils,  who,  with  bad  prospects  for  the  coming  har 
vest,  and  in  want  of  sufficient  capital  to  make  the  great  improvements 
on  their  farms  which  would  enable  them  to  pay  their  old  rents,  have 
no  other  alternative  but  to  cross  the  sea  in  search  of  a  new  country 
aad  of  new  lands.  I  am  not  speaking  now  of  the  emigration  caused 
by  the  gold  mania,  but  only  of  the  compulsory  emigration  produced 
by  landlordism,  concentration  of  farms,  application  of  machinery  to 
the  soil,  and  introduction  of  the  modern  system  of  agriculture  on  a 
great  scale." — Correspondence  of  the  New  York  Tribune. 

Nevertheless,  wages  do  not  rise.  Hundreds  of  thousands,  and 
even  millions,  of  the  poor  people  of  the  kingdom  have  now  been 
expelled,  and  yet  there  is  "  no  regular  demand  for  labour,"  and 
wages  continue  as  low  as  ever.  That  such  should  be  the  case  is 
not  extraordinary,  but  it  will  be  so  if  this  diminution  of  the  power 
of  association  do  not  result  in  lowering  the  reward  of  labour,  and 
accelerating  the  dispersion  of  the  labourers.  Every  man  that  goes 
was  a  producer  of  something,  to  be  given  in  exchange  for  another 
thing  that  he  required,  that  was  produced  by  others;  and  from  the 
moment  of  his  departure  he  ceases  to  be  a  producer,  with  corre 
spondent  diminution  in  the  demand  for  the  clothj  the  iron,  or  the 
salt  produced  by  his  neighbours.  The  less  the  competition  for 
purchase  the  more  becomes  the  competition  for  sale,  and  the  lower 
must  be  the  compensation  of  the  labourer.  A  recent  journal  in 
forms  us  that  the  condition  of  one  class  of  operatives,  the  salt- 
boilers,  has  "  gradually  become  most  deplorable." 

"  Their  wages  at  present  do  not  average  15s.  a  week,  because  they 
are  not  employed  full  time ;  2s.  Qd.  a  day  is  the  highest  price  given, 
and  one  of  these  days  consists  of  fourteen  or  sixteen  hours.  In  addi 
tion  to  this,  some  of  the  employers  have  latterly  introduced  a  new  mode 
of  diminishing  the  actual  payment  in  wages.  As  has  already  been 
stated,  the  salt-pans  in  the  course  of  a  few  days  require  cleansing  from 
the  impurities  and  dross  thrown  down  with  the  process  of  boiling.  The 
accumulation  may  vary  from  one-eighth  of  an  inch  to  one  foot,  accord 
ing  to  the  quality  of  the  brine.  Therefore,  every  fortnight  the  fires 
are  let  out  and  the  pans  picked  and  cleaned,  a  process  which  occupies 


404 

a  full  day ;  and  this  unavoidable  and  necessary  work  it  is  becoming 
the  fashion  to  require  the  men  to  perform  without  any  remuneration 
whatever ;  or,  in  other  words,  to  demand  one  month's  work  out  of  the 
twelve  from  them  without  giving  any  wages  in  return  \" — Lawsoris 
Merchants'  Magazine,  February,  1853,  98. 

The  more  steady  and  active  the  emigration  of  the  agricultural 
labourers,  and  the  larger  the  remainder  of  factory  operatives,  the 
greater  must  be  the  necessity  for  depending  on  other  countries  for 
supplies,  and  the  less  must  be  the  power  of  the  nation  in  the  com 
munity  of  nations,  the  richer  must  grow  the  great  manufacturer, 
and  the  poorer  must  become  the  labourer;  and,  as  this  system  is 
now  being  so  vigorously  carried  out,  the  cause  of  weakness  may 
readily  be  understood.  It  is  a  natural  consequence  of  the  purely 
selfish  policy  to  which,  the  Ricardo-Malthusian  doctrines  inevitably 
lead. 

Can  such  a  system  be  a  natural  one  ?  Is  it  possible  that  an  all- 
wise,  all-powerful,  and  all-merciful  Being,  having  constructed  this 
world  for  the  occupation  of  man,  should  have  inflicted  upon  it  such 
a  curse  as  is  found  in  a  system  of  laws  the  study  of  which  leads  to 
the  conclusion  that  men  can  live  only  "  by  snatching  the  bread 
out  of  the  mouths"  of  their  fellow-men  ?  Assuredly  not.  What, 
then,  are  the  laws  under  which  man  "  lives  and  moves  and  has 
his  being  ?"  To  obtain  an  answer  to  this  question,  we  must  go 
back  to  the  proposition  which  lies  at  the  base  of  the  British  sys 
tem — that  which  teaches  that  men  begin  the  work  of  cultivation 
with  the  rich  soils  of  the  earth,  and  are  afterward  compelled  to 
resort  to  inferior  ones — the  most  important  one  in  political  eco 
nomy  ;  so  important,  says  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill,  that  were  it  otherwise, 
"  almost  all  the  phenomena  of  the  production  and  distribution  of 
wealth  would  be  other  than  they  are." 

Admitting,  now,  that  the  law  were  different,  and  that  instead  of 
commencing  on  the  rich  soils  and  then  passing  toward  the  poor 
ones,  they  commenced  on  the  poor  soils  of  the  hills  and  gradually 
made  their  way  down  to  the  rich  ones  of  the  swamps  and  river- 
bottoms,  would  not  one  of  the  differences  referred  to  by  Mr.  Mill 
consist  in  this,  that  whereas  the  old  theory  tended  to  establish  a 
constant  increase  in  the  necessities  of  man,  with  constant  deteriora- 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  405 

tion  of  his  condition  and  growing  inequality  among  men,  the  new 
one  would  tend  to  establish  a  constant  increase  of  his  powers,  with 
constant  improvement  of  condition  and  growing  equality  among 
men,  wherever  the  laws  of  God  were  permitted  to  control  their 
operations  ? 

Again,  might  not  another  of  those  differences  consist  in  the 
establishment  of  the  fact,  that  instead  of  there  having  been  a  mis 
take  on  the  part  of  the  Creator,  there  had  been  a  serious  one  on 
that  of  the  economists,  in  attributing  to  those  little  scraps  of  the 
earth  that  man  forms  into  wagons,  ships,  and  steam-engines,  and 
which  he  calls  capital,  an  importance  greater  than  is  assigned  to 
the  earth  of  which  they  are  so  trivial  a  portion ;  and  that  the  latter 
was  the  real  bank,  the  source  of  all  capital,  from  which  he  can 
have  loans  to  an  extent  almost  unlimited,  provided  he  recollects 
that  they  are  loans,  and  not  gifts,  and  that  his  credit  with  this 
banker,  as  well  as  with  all  others,  cannot  be  maintained  without  a 
punctual  repayment  of  the  matter  borrowed  when  he  has  ceased  to 
need  it? 

Further,  as  the  old  theory  furnishes  propositions  to  which  the 
exceptions  are  seen  to  be  so  numerous  that  every  new  writer  finds 
himself  compelled  to  modify  it  in  some  manner  with  a  view  to 
cover  those  exceptions,  "might  not  another  of  the  differences  consist 
in  its  furnishing  laws  as-  universally  true  as  are  those  of  Copernicus, 
Kepler,  or  Newton — laws  that  gave  proof  of  their  truth  by  being 
everywhere  in  harmony  with  each  other,  and  productive  every 
where  of  harmony ;  and  would  not  the  following  form  a  part  of 
them  ?— 

I.  That  the  poor  and  solitary  man  commences  everywhere  with 
poor  machinery,  and  that  everywhere,  as  population  and  wealth 
increase,  he  obtains  better  machinery,  and  production  is  increased. 
The  first  poor  settler  has  no  cup,  and  he  takes  up  water  in  his 
hand.  He  has  no  hogs  or  cattle  to  yield  him  oil,  and  he  is  com 
pelled  to  depend  on  pine-knots  for  artificial  light.  He  has  no 
axe,  and  he  cannot  fell  a  tree,  either  to  supply  himself  with  fuel 
or  to  clear  his  land.  He  has  no  saw,  and  he  is  compelled  to  seek 
shelter  under  a  rock,  because  he  is  unable  to  build  himself  a  house. 


406 

He  has  no  spade,  and  he  is  compelled  to  cultivate  land  that  is  too 
poor  to  need  clearing,  and  too  dry  to  require  drainage.  He  has 
no  horse,  and  is  obliged  to  carry  his  little  crop  of  grain  on  his  shoul 
ders.  He  has  no  mill,  and  is  compelled  to  pound  his  grain  be 
tween  stones,  or  to  eat  it  unground,  as  did  the  Komans  for  so  many 
centuries.  With  the  growth  of  wealth  and  population  he  obtains 
machinery  that  enables  him  to  command  the  services  of  the  various 
natural  agents  by  which  he  is  surrounded ;  and  he  now  obtains  more 
water,  more  light,  more  heat,  and  more  power  at  less  cost  of  labour; 
and  he  cultivates  rich  lands  that  yield  food  more  largely,  while  he 
transports  its  products,  by  means  of  a  wagon  or  a  railroad  car,  con 
verts  it  into  flour  by  aid  of  steam,  and  exchanges  it  readily  with 
the  man  who  converts  his  food  and  his  wool  into  cloth,  or  food  and 
ore  into  iron, — and  thus  passes  from  poor  to  better  machinery  of 
production,  transportation,  and  exchange,  with  increasing  reward 
of  labour,  and  diminishing  value  of  all  the  products  of  labour. 

II.  That  the  poor  settler  gives  a  large  proportion  of  the  produce 
of  his  labour  for  the  use  of  poor  machinery  of  production,  trans 
portation,  and  exchange;  but  the  produce  being  small,  the  quantity 
of  rent  then  paid  is  very  small.     He  is  a  slave  to  the  owner  of 
landed  or  other  capital. 

III.  That  with  the  increased  productiveness  of  labour  there  is 
increased  facility  for  the  reproduction  of  machinery  required  for 
the  production  of  water,  light,  fuel,  and  food ;  and  that  this  dimi 
nution  in  the  cost  of  reproduction  is  attended  with  a  constant  dimi 
nution  in  the  value  of  all  such  machinery  previously  accumulated, 
and  diminution  in  the  proportion  of  the  product  of  labour  that 
can  be  demanded  as  rent  for  their  use;  and  thus,  while  labour 
steadily  increases  in  its  power  to  yield  commodities  of  every  kind 
required  by  man,  capital  as  steadily  diminishes  in  its  power  over 
the  labourer.     Present  labour  obtains  a  constantly  increasing  pro 
portion  of  a  constantly  increasing  quantity,  while  the  claims  of 
the  accumulations  of  past  labour  (capital)  are  rewarded  with  an 
increasing  quantity,  but  rapidly  diminishing  proportion ;  and  that 
there  is   thus,  with  the  growth  of  population  and  wealth,  a  daily 
tendency  toward  improvement  and  equality  of  condition. 


DOMESTIC    AND    FOREIGN.  407 

IV.  That  increase  in  the  quantity  of  the  landlord  or  other  capi 
talist  is  evidence  of  increase  in  the  labourer's  proportion,  and  of 
large  increase  of  his  quantity,  with  constantly  increasing  tendency 
toward  freedom  of  thought,  speech,  action,  and  trade,  and  that  it  is 
precisely  as  laud  acquires  value  that  man  becomes  free. 

Here  is  a  system,  all  the  parts  of  which  are  in  perfect  harmony 
with  each  other,  and  all  tending  to  the  production  of  harmony 
among  the  various  portions  of  society,  and  the  different  nations  of 
the  earth.  Under  them,  we  see  men  beginning  on  the  higher  and 
poorer  lands  and  gradually  coming  together  in  the  valleys,  with 
steady  tendency  to  increase  in  the  power  of  association,  and  in  the 
power  to  assert  the  right  of  perfect  self-government.  It  is  thus  the 
system  of  freedom.  Population  enables  men  to  cultivate  the  richer 
soils,  and  food  tends  to  increase  more  rapidly  than  population, 
giving  men  leisure  for  the  cultivation  of  their  minds  and  those  of 
their  children.  Increased  intelligence  enables  man  from  year  to 
year  to  obtain  larger  loans  from  the  great  bank — the  earth — while 
with  the  increased  diversification  of  labour  he  is  enabled  more  and 
more  to  repay  them  by  the  restoration  of  the  manure  to  the  place 
from  which  the  food  had  been  derived. 

Here  are  laws  tending  to  the  promotion  of  kindly  feelings,  and 
to  the  enabling  of  man  to  carry  fully  into  effect  the  great  law  which 
lies  at  the  base  of  Christianity — doing  to  his  neighbours  as  he 
would  that  they  should  do  unto  him.  They  are  laws  whose  con 
stant  and  uniform  truth  may  be  seen  in  reference  to  every  descrip 
tion  of  capital  and  of  labour,  and  in  all  the  communities  of  the 
world,  large  and  small,  in  present  and  in  past  times.  Being  laws, 
they  admit  of  no  exceptions  any  more  than  do  the  great  astrono 
mical  ones.  They  recognise  the  whole  product  of  labour  as  being 
the  property  of  the  labourer  of  the  past  and  the  present;  the 
former  represented  by  the  proprietor  of  the  machine,  and  the  lat 
ter  by  the  man  who  uses  it,  and  who  finds  himself  every  day  more 
and  more  able  to  accumulate  the  means  of  becoming  himself  a 
proprietor. 

The  English  system  does  not  recognise  the  existence  of  universal 
laws.  According  to  it,  land,  labour,  and  capital  are  the  three  in- 


408 

struinents  of  production,  and  they  are  governed  by  different  laws. 
Labour,  when  it  seeks  aid  from  land,  is  supposed  to  begin  with  good 
machinery  and  to  pass  toward  the  worst,  with  constantly  increasing 
power  in  the  owner  of  the  land ;  whereas,  when  it  seeks  aid  from 
the  steam-engine,  it  passes  from  poor  to  good,  with  diminishing 
power  in  the  owner  of  capital.  There  is  thus  one  set  of  laws  for 
the  government  of  the  great  machine  itself — the  earth — and  an 
other  for  that  of  all  its  parts.  Under  the  first,  value  is  supposed  to 
increase  because  of  the  diminished  productiveness  of  labour,  where 
as  under  the  last  it  is  supposed  to  diminish  because  of  the  in 
creased  productiveness  of  labour.  The  two  point  to  opposite  poles 
of  the  compass,  and  the  only  mode  of  reconciling  them  is  found  in 
the  supposition  that  as  the  power  of  production  diminishes  with 
the  increasing  necessity  for  resorting  to  inferior  soils,  the  power 
of  accumulating  capital  tends  to  increase,  and  thus  counterbalances 
the  disadvantages  resulting  from  the  necessity  for  applying  labour 
less  and  less  advantageously.  Who  is  it,  however,  that  is  to  fur 
nish  this  capital  ?  Is  it  the  labourer  ?  He  cannot  do  it,  for  he 
cultivates  "  the  inferior  soils,"  and  retains  for  himself  a  constantly 
diminishing  proportion  of  a  constantly  diminishing  product.  Is 
it  the  landlord  ?  His  proportion  increases,  it  is  true,  but  his 
quantity  diminishes  in  its  proportion  to  population,  as  his  tenants 
are  forced  to  resort  to  less  productive  soils.  The  power  to  accu 
mulate  is  dependent  on  the  quantity  of  time  and  labour  required 
for  obtaining  present  subsistence ;  and  as  that  increases  with  the 
necessity  for  resorting  to  poorer  machinery,  the  power  to  obtain 
machines  to  be  used  in  aid  of  labour  dies  away.  Such  being  the 
case,  it  is  clear  that  if  men  are  obliged,  in  obedience  to  a  great 
natural  law,  to  pass  steadily  from  rich  soils  to  poor  ones  yielding 
less  returns  to  labour,  no  compensation  can  anywhere  be  found, 
and  that  the  elder  Mill  was  right  when  he  said  that  the  power  of 
accumulation  must  cease,  and  wages  must  fall  so  low  that  men 
"  would  perish  of  want;"  in  preference  to  doing  which  they  would, 
of  course,  sell  themselves,  their  wives,  and  children,  into  slavery. 
Of  all  the  English  writers  on  this  subject,  he  is  the  only  one  that 
has  had  the  courage  to  follow  out  the  Ricardo-Malthusian  system 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  409 

to  its  necessary  conclusions,  and  proclaim  to  the  world  the  existence 
of  a  great  law  of  nature  leading  inevitably  to  the  division  of  society 
into  two  great  portions,  the  very  rich  and  the  very  poor — the 
master  and  the  slave. 

There  are  thus  two  systems — one  of  which  proclaims  that  men 
can  thrive  only  at  the  expense  of  their  neighbours,  and  the  other 
that  they  prosper  with  the  prosperity  of  those  neighbours — • 
one  that  teaches  utter  selfishness,  and  another  teaching  that 
enlightened  selfishness  which  prompts  men  to  rejoice  in  the 
advances  of  their  fellow-men  toward  wealth  and  civilization — • 
one  that  leads  to  internal  discord  and  foreign  w,ar,  and  another 
teaching  peace,  union,  and  brotherly  kindness  throughout  the 
world — one  that  teaches  the  doctrine  of  despair  and  death,  and 
another  teaching  joy  and  hope — one  that  is  anti-christian  in  all 
its  tendencies,  teaching  that  we  must  not  do  to  our  neighbour  in 
distress  as  we  would  that  he  should  do  to  us,  but  that,  on  the  con 
trary  our  duty  requires  that  we  should  see  him  suffer,  unrelieved, 
every  calamity  short  of  "  positive  death,"  and  another  teaching  in 
its  every  page  that  if  individuals  or  nations  would  thrive,  they  can 
do  so  only  on  the  condition  of  carrying  into  full  effect  the  great 
law  of  Christ — "  That  which  ye  would  that  others  should  do  unto 
you,  do  ye  unto  them." 

Both  of  these  systems  cannot  be  true.  Which  of  them  is  so 
is  to  be  settled  by  the  determination  of  the  great  fact  whether 
the  Creator  made  a  mistake  in  providing  that  the  poor  settler 
should  commence  on  the  low  and  rich  lands,  leaving  the  poor  soils 
of  the  hills  to  his  successors,  who  obtain  from  them  a  constantly 
diminishing  supply  of  food — or  whether,  in  his  infinite  wisdom,  ho 
provided  that  the  poor  man,  destitute  of  axe  and  spade,  should  go 
to  the  poor  and  dry  land  of  the  hills,  requiring  neither  clearing 
nor  drainage,  leaving  the  heavily  timbered  and  swamp  lands  for 
his  wealthy  successors.  If  the  first,  then  the  laws  of  God  tend 
to  the  perpetuation  of  slavery,  and  the  English  political  economy 
is  right  in  all  its  parts,  and  should  be  maintained.  If  the  last, 
then  is  it  wrong  in  all  its  parts,  and  duty  to  themselves, 
to  their  fellow-men  throughout  the  world,  and  to  the  great 

35 


410  THE   SLAVE   TRADE, 

Giver  of  all  good  things,   requires  that  it  be  at  once   and  for 
ever  abandoned. 

It  is  time  that  enlightened  Englishmen  should  examine  into  this 
question.  When  they  shall  do  so,  it  will  require  little  time  to 
satisfy  themselves  that  every  portion  of  their  own  island  furnishes 
proof  that  cultivation  commenced  on  the  poor  soils,  and  that  from 
the  day  when  King  Arthur  held  his  court  in  a  remote  part  of  Corn 
wall  fo  that  on  which  Chatfield  Moss  was  drained,  men  have  been 
steadily  obtaining  more  productive  soils  at  less  cost  of  labour,  and 
that  not  only  are  they  now  doing  so,  but  that  it  is  difficult  to  esti 
mate  how  far  it  may  be  carried.  Every  discovery  in  science  tends 
to  facilitate  the  making  of  those  combinations  of  matter  requisite 
for  the  production  of  food,  giving  better  soils  at  diminished  cost. 
Every  new  one"  tends  to  give  to  man  increased  power  to  command 
the  use  of  those  great  natural  agents  provided  for  his  servjce,  and 
to  enable  him  to  obtain  more  and  better  food,  more  and  better 
clothing,  more  and  better  house-room,  in  exchange  for  less  labour, 
leaving  him  more  time  for  the  improvement  of  his  mind,  for  the 
education  of  his  children,  and  for  the  enjoyment  of  those  recrea 
tions  which  tend  to  render  life  pleasurable.  The  reverse,  of  all  this 
is  seen  under  the  English  system.  The  more  numerous  the  discove 
ries  in  science,  and  the  greater  the  command  of  man  over  the  power 
ful  natural  agents  given  for  diminishing  labour,  the  more  severe 
and  unintermitting  becomes  his  toil,  the  less  becomes  his  supply  of 
food,  the  poorer  becomes  his  clothing,  the  more  wretched  becomes 
his  lodging,  the  less  time  can  be  given  to  the  improvement  of  his 
mind,  the  more  barbarous  grow  up  his  children,  the  more  is  his 
wife  compelled  to  work  in  the  field,  and  the  less  is  his  time  for  en 
joyment; — as  witness  all  those  countries  over  which  England  now 
exercises  dominion,  and  as  witness  to  so  great  an  extent  the  present 
condition  of  her  own  people,  as  exhibited  by  those  of  her  own 
writers  quoted  in  a  former  chapter. 

Selfishness  and  Christianity  cannot  go  together,  nor  can  selfish 
ness  and  national  prosperity.  It  is  purely  selfish  in  the  people  of 
England  to  desire  to  prevent  the  people  of  the  various  nations  of 
the  world  from  profiting  by  their  natural  advantages,  whether  of 


DOMESTIC   AND   FOREIGN.  411 

coal,  iron  ore,  copper,  tin,  or  lead.  It  is  injurious  to  themselves, 
because  it  keeps  their  neighbours  poor,  while  they  are  subjected  to 
vast  expense  in  the  effort  to  keep  them  from  rebelling  against  tax 
ation.  They  maintain  great  fleets  and  armies,  at  enormous  ex 
pense,  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  up  a  system  that  destroys  their 
customers  and  themselves;  and  this  they  must  continue  to  do  so 
long  as  they  shall  hold  to  the  doctrine  which  teaches  that  the  only 
way  to  secure  a  fair  remuneration  to  capital  is  to  keep  the  price 
of  labour  down,  because  it  is  one  that  produces  discord  and 
slavery,  abroad  and  at  home ;  whereas,  under  that  of  peace,  hope, 
and  freedom,  they  would  need  neither  fleets  nor  armies. 

It  is  to  the  country  of  Hampden  and  Sidney  that  the  world 
should  be  enabled  to  look  for  advice  in  all  matters  affecting  the 
cause  of  freedom ;  and  it  is  to  her  that  all  would  look,  could  her 
statesmen  bring  themselves  to  understand  how  destructive  to  her 
self  and  them  is  the  system  of  centralization  she  now  seeks  to 
establish.  As  it  is,  slavery  grows  in  all  the  countries  under  her 
control,  and  freedom  grows  in  no  single  country  of  the  world  but 
those  which  protect  themselves  against  her  system.  It  is  time 
that  the  enlightened  and  liberal  men  of  England  should  study  the 
cause  of  this  fact  ;  and  whenever  they  shall  do  so  they  will  find  a 
ready  explanation  of  the  growing  pauperism,  immorality,  gloom, 
and  slavery  of  their  own  country ;  and  they  will  then  have  little 
difficulty  in  understanding  that  the  protective  tariffs  of  all  the  ad 
vancing  nations  of  Europe  are  but  measures  of  resistance  to  a  sys 
tem  of  enormous  oppression,  and  that  it  is  in  that  direction  that 
the  people  of  this  country  are  to  look  for  the  true  and  only  road  to 
freedom  of  trade  and  the  freedom  of  man. 

It  is  time  that  such  men  should  ask  themselves  whether  or  not 
their  commercial  policy  can,  by  any  possibility,  aid  the  cause  of 
freedom,  abroad  or  at  home.  The  nations  of  the  world  are  told  of 
the  "free  and  happy  people"  of  England;  but  when  they  look  to 
that  country  to  ascertain  the  benefits  of  freedom,  they  meet  with 
frightful  pauperism,  gross  immorality,  infanticide  to  an  extent 
unknown  in  any  other  part  of  the  civilized  world,  and  a  steadily 
increasing  division  of  the  people  into  two  great  classes — the  very 


412 

rich  and  the  very  poor — with  an  universal  tendency  to  "  fly  fi-om 
ills  they  know,"  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  abroad  the  comfort  and 
happiness  denied  them  at  home.  Can  this  benefit  the  cause  of 
freedom? — The  nations  are  told  of  the  enlightened  character  of 
the  British  government,  and  yet,  when  they  look  to  Ireland,  they 
can  see  nothing  but  poverty,  famine,  and  pestilence,  to  end  in  the 
utter  annihilation  of  a  nation  that  has  given  to  England  herself 
many  of  her  most  distinguished  men.  If  they  look  to  India,  they 
see  nothing  but  poverty,  pestilence,  famine,  and  slavery ;  and  if 
they  cast  their  eyes  toward  China,  they  see  the  whole  power  of  the 
nation  put  forth  to  compel  a  great  people  to  submit  to  the  fraudu 
lent  introduction  of  a  commodity,  the  domestic  production  of  which 
is  forbidden  because  of  its  destructive  effects  upon  the  morals,  the 
happiness,  and  the  lives  of  the  community.* — The  nations  are  told 
that  England 

*  The  net  revenue  from  the  opium  trade,  for  the  current  year,  is  stated  to  be 
no  less  than  four  millions  of  pounds  sterling,  or  nearly  twenty  millions  of  dollars; 
and  it  is  to  that  revenue,  says  The  Friend  of  India,  Nov.  25, 1852,  that  the  Indian 
government  has  been  indebted  for  its  power  to  carry  on  the  wars  since  1838, 
those  of  Afghanistan,  Scinde,  Gwalior,  the  Punjab,  and  that  now  existing  with 
Burrnah.  Well  is  it  asked  by  Dr.  Allen,  in  his  pamphlet  on  "  The  Opium  Trade," 
(Lowell,  1853,)  "Can  such  an  unrighteous  course  in  a  nation  always  prosper?" 
"  How,"  says  the  same  author,  "  can  the  Chinese 

"  Regard  the  English  in  any  other  light  than  wholesale  smugglers  and  whole 
sale  dealers  in  poison  ?  The  latter  can  expend  annually  over  two  millions  of  dol 
lars  on  the  coast  of  Great  Britain  to  protect  its  own  revenue  laws,  but  at  the  same 
time  set  at  bold  defiance  similar  laws  of  protection  enacted  by  the  former.  The 
English  are  constantly  supplying  the  Chinese  a  deadly  poison,  with  which  thou 
sands  yearly  put  an  end  to  their  existence.  In  England,  even  the  druggists  are 
expressly  forbidden  to  sell  arsenic,  laudanum,  or  other  poison,  if  they  have  the 
least  suspicion  that  their  customer  intends  to  commit  suicide.  But  in  China  every 
facility  is  afforded  and  material  supplied  under  the  British  flag,  and  sanctioned 
by  Parliament  itself,  for  wholesale  slaughter.  How  long  will  an  enlightened  and 
Christian  nation  continue  to  farm  and  grow  a  means  of  vice,  with  the  proceeds  of 
which,  even  when  in  her  possession,  a  benighted  and  pagan  nation  disdains  to 
replenish  her  treasury,  being  drawn  from  the  ruin  and  misery  of  her  people  ? 
Where  is  the  consistency  or  humanity  of  a  nation  supporting  armed  vessels  on 
the  coastof  Africa  to  intercept  and  rescue  a  few  hundreds  of  her  sons  from  a  foreign 
bondage,  when,  at  the  same  time,  she  is  forging  chains  to-  hold  millions  on  the 
coast  of  China  in  a  far  more  hopeless  bondage  ?  And  what  must  the  world  think 
of  the  religion  of  a  nation  that  consecrates  churches,  ordains  ministers  of  the 
gospel,  and  sends  abroad  missionaries  of  the  cross,  while,  in  the  mean  time,  it 
encourages  and  upholds  a  vice  which  is  daily  inflicting  misery  and  death  upon 
more  than  four  millions  of  heathen  ?  And  what  must  be  the  verdict  of  future 


DOMESTIC   AND    FOREIGN.  413 

"  Is  the  asylum  of  nations,  and  that  it  ioi.ll.  defend  the  asylum  to  the 
last  ounce  of  its  treasure  and  the  last  drop  of  its  blood.  There  is,"  con 
tinues  The  Times,  "no  point  whatever  on  which  we  are  prouder  or 
more  resolute." 

Nevertheless,  when  they  look  to  the  countries  of  Europe  that 
furnish  the  refugees  who  claim  a  place  in  this  asylum,  they  see  that 
England  is  everywhere  at  work  to  prevent  the  people  from  obtain 
ing  the  means  of  raising  themselves  in  the  social  scale.  So  long 
as  they  shall  continue  purely  agricultural,  they  must  remain  poor, 
weak,  and  enslaved,  and  their  only  hope  for  improvement  is  from 
that  association  of  the  loom  and  the  plough  which  gave  to  England 
her  freedom  ;  and  yet  England  is  everywhere  their  opponent,  seek 
ing  to  annihilate  the  power  of  association. — The  nations  are  told  of 
the  vast  improvement  of  machinery,  by  aid  of  which  man  is  enabled 
to  call  to  his  service  the  great  powers  of  nature,  and  thus  improve 
not  only  his  material  but  his  intellectual  condition ;  but,  when  they 
look  to  the  colonies  and  to  the  allies  of  England,  they  see  every 
where  a  decay  of  intellect ;  and  when  they  look  to  the  independ 
ent  countries,  they  see  her  whole  power  put  forth  to  prevent  them 
from  doing  any  thing  but  cultivate  the  earth  and  exhaust  the  soil. 
It  is  time  that  enlightened  Englishmen  should  look  carefully  at 
these  things,  and  answer  to  themselves  whether  or  not  they  are 
thus  promoting  the  cause  of  freedom.  That  they  are  not,  must  be 
the  answer  of  each  and  every  such  man.  That  question  answered, 
it  will  be  for  them  to  look  to  see  in  which  direction  lies  the  path 
of  duty;  and  fortunate  will  it  be  if  they  can  see  that  interest  and 
duty  can  be  made  to  travel  in  company  with  each  other. 

To  the  women  of  England  much  credit  is  due  for  having  brought 
this  question  before  the  world.  It  is  one  that  should  have  for  them 
the  deepest  interest.  Wherever  man  is  unable  to  obtain  machinery, 
he  is  forced  to  depend  on  mere  brute  labour;  and  he  is  then  so 


generations,  as  they  peruse  the  history  of  these  wrongs  and  outrages  ?  Will  not 
the  page  of  history,  which  now  records  £20,000,000  as  consecrated  on  the  altar 
of  humanity  to  emancipate  800,000  slaves,  lose  all  its  splendour  and  become  posi 
tively  odious,  when  it  shall  be  known  that  this  very  money  was  obtained  from  the 
proceeds  of  a  contraband  traffic  on  the  shores  of  a  weak  and  defenceless  heathen 
empire,  at  the  sacrifice,  too,  of  millions  upon  millions  of  lives  ?" 

35* 


414  THE   SLAVE   TRADE. 

poor  that  his  wife  must  aid  him  in  the  labours  of  the  field,  to  her 
own  degradation,  and  to  the  neglect  of  her  home,  her  husband,  her 
children,  and  herself.  She  is  then  the  most  oppressed  of  slaves. 
As  men  obtain  machinery,  they  obtain  command  of  great  natural 
agents,  and  mind  gradually  takes  the  place  of  physical  force ;  and 
then  labour  in  the  field  becomes  more  productive,  and  the  woman 
passes  from  out-of-door  to  in-door  employments,  and  with  each 
step  in  this  direction  she  is  enabled  to  give  more  care  to  her  chil 
dren,  her  husband,  and  herself.  From  being  a  slave,  and  the 
mother  of  slaves,  she  passes  to  becoming  a  free  woman,  the  mother 
of  daughters  that  are  free,  and  the  instructor  of  those  to  whom 
the  next  generation  is  to  look  for  instruction. 

The  English  system  looks  to  confining  the  women  of  the  world 
to  the  labours  of  the  field,  and  such  is  its  effect  everywhere.  It 
looks,  therefore,  to  debasing  and  enslaving  them  and  their  children. 
The  other  looks  to  their  emancipation  from  slavery,  and  their  ele 
vation  in  the  social  scale  \  and  it  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  regarded 
by  the  women  as  well  as  by  the  men  of  England  as  a  matter  of 
duty  to  inquire  into  the  grounds  upon  which  their  policy  is  based, 
and  to  satisfy  themselves  if  it  can  be  possible  that  there  is  aay 
truth  in  a  system  which  tends  everywhere  to  the  production  of 
slavery,  and  therefore  to  the  maintenance  of  the  slave  trade 
throughout  the  world. 


INDEX. 


A. 

ABANDONMENT  of  land  in  the  Southern 
States,  1 1 2 — in  Jamaica,  27 — in  India, 
151— in  Turkey,  128. 

Absenteeism  in  Jamaica,  its  effects,  76. 
— Irish,  causes  of,  181.  McCulloch 
on,  239,  260.  Senior  on,  198. 

Address  of  the  women  of  England,  6. 

Africa,  European  policy  in,  297.  Nature 
of  present  English  trade  with,297. How 
to  stop  the  export  of  men  from,  299. 

Agrarianism  in  England,  281. 

Agriculture  of  England,how  discouraged, 
267— product  of,  271.  Of  Denmark, 
343_of  Belgium,  361— of  Spain,  354 
—of  Germany,  310,  311. 

Agricultural  nations  the  natural  allies 
of  the  United  States,  380.  Have  one 
common  interest,  381.  Insane  contest 
of,  for  the  privilege  of  supplying  a 
small  market,  383, 

Allies  of  England,  their  present  condi 
tion,  290. 

Ambelakaia,  its  former  prosperity  and 
present  desolation,  121. 

America,  early  settlement  of,  40.  Pro 
hibition  of  manufactures  in,  65. 

American  agriculture,  as  described  by 
Professor  Johnson,  103. 

American  and  British  slavery  systems 
contrasted,  20. 

Amusements  of  the  people  of  Germany, 
320. 

Annual  loss  to  New  York  from  the  ex 
haustion  of  the  soil,  105. 

Anomalous  position  of  England,  291. 

Anstey,  Mr.,  on  the  condition  of  the 
people  of  India,  161. 

Anti-christian  teachings  of  the  Ricardo- 
Malthusian  system,  399. 

Anti-slavery,  growth  of,  374. 

Artisa.n,  the,  always  the  ally  of  the 
farmer,  87, 


Artisans,  their  export  from  England 
prohibited,  95. 

Association,  great  system  of  voluntary, 
in  India,  130.  Every  act  of,  an  act 
of  commerce,  242.  Policy  of  England 
tends  everywhere  to  prevent  the 
growth  of,  291. 


B. 


Backhouse,  Mr,,  on  slavery  in  the  Mau 
ritius,  168. 

Barbadoes,  slavery  in,  13. 

Barbarism,  tendency  toward,  in  India, 
149. 

Belgium,  how  freedom  grows  in,  359. 
Heavy  public  debt  of,  359.  Pacific 
policy  of,  360.  Condition  of  the  popu 
lation  of,  360.  Division  of  land  in, 
360.  Agriculture  of,  361.  Growth  of 
wealth  and  population  in,  362. 

Bethlem  hospital,  treatment  of  maniacs 
in,  235. 

Bigelow's  Jamaica,  quoted,  25,  27,  171. 

Birmingham  manufacture  of  guns  for 
Africa,  297. 

Book  trade  of  Ireland,  175. 

Briggs,  Col,,  on  the  land-tax  of  India, 
131. 

Bright,  Mr.,  on  India,  quoted,  145,  152. 

British  and  American  slavery  systems 
contrasted,  20. 

capital,  diminished  tendency  of, 

toward  India,  163. 

colonies,  slavery  in  the,  8. 

Guiana,  slavery  in,  13. 

British  policy,  selfishness  of,  and  its 
object,  250.  Requires  the  wool  to  go 
to  the  spindle,  254.  Waste  of  labour 
caused  by  the,  254.  Has  it  tended 
anywhere  to  promote  the  progress  of 
freedom  ?  376. 

British  produce  and  manufactures,  com 
parative  exports  of,  263,  274. 


416 


INDEX 


British    system   a   gigantic   scheme  of 

slavery,  364. 

Burial  clubs  in  England,  231. 
Burmese  war,  its  object,  165. 
Byles,  Mr.  J.  B.,  on  Ireland,  177. 


0. 


Campbell's  modern  India,  quoted,  153, 

1,37,  160,  164. 
Capital  first  directed  to  agriculture,  next 

to  manufactures,  and  last  to  trade,  63. 
required  for    effecting  exchanges, 

diminishes   with   the    diminution  of 

distance,  245. 

—  does  not  accumulate  in  India,  148. 
Cardwell,  Mr.,  his  remarks  on  the  effects 

of  free  trade,  107. 
Carolina,  North  and   South,  their  rich 

lands  unoccupied,  101. 
Causes  of  difference  in  amount  of  pro 
duction  in  the  Northern  and  Southern 

States,  106. 
of  pestilence  in  India,  161 ;  and  in 

Ireland,  186. 
Centralization  in  India,  137;  increase 

of,  163.     In  Scotland,  effects  of,  202  ; 

in  England,  285.     Growth  of,  in  the 

United  States,  371. 
Chapman  on  the    commerce    of  India, 

quoted,  146,  149,  164. 
Character  of  the  people  of  India,  165. 
Chatham,  Lord,  on  the  prohibition  of 

manufactures  in  America,  95. 
Cheap  cotton,  cost  at  which  it  is  ob 
tained,  111. 
Cheap  food  forces   the   exportation   of 

negroes  to  the  South,  289. 

food  and  slavery  go  together,  393. 

labour  system  of  England  the  cause 

of  domestic  slave  trade,  373. 
sugar,  at  whose  cost  it  is  obtained, 

92. 
sugar  and  cotton,  how  they  affect 

the  English  labourer,  276. 
Child-murder  in  Turkey,   128;  and  in 

England,  229. 
Clearances   in   the  North  of  Scotland, 

203. 
Clothing   of  the   labouring  women  of 

England,  poverty  of  the,  271. 
Coal  and  iron  ore  in  India,  140. 
Coffee,  heavy  duty  on  the  import  of, 

from  Jamaica  into  England,  74. 
Coleridge,  Rev.  N.,  his  account  of  British 

and  French  West  Indies,  81. 
Colonial  commerce,  restriction  of,  75. 

system,  object  of  the,  88. 

policy,  Joshua  Gee  on  the,  71. 


Colonial  commerce,  Lord  Grey  on  the, 
72. 

Commerce,  Adam  Smith's  idea  of,  241. 
Commonly  received  idea  of,  242. 
Every  act  of  association  an  act  of,  242. 
Increases  with  diminution  of  distance, 
243.  How  affected  by  protection, 
392. 

Commerce  of  Cuba,  160.  Germany,  392. 
India,  154.  Spain,  357. 

Commercial  centralization  of  England, 
its  object  and  effects,  260.  Discou 
rages  her  own  agriculture,  261,  267. 
Produces  a  necessity  for  new  markets, 
211.  Its  effects  in  Ireland,  197. 

Comparative  exports  of  England,  274. 

prices  of  commodities  that  Eng 
land  buys  and  sells,  273. 

wealth  of  England  and  New  York, 

282. 

Competition  for  the  purchase  of  labour, 
its  effects,  57. 

for  distant,  and  neglect  of  near 

trade,  246. 

in  England,  for  sale  of  raw  produce, 

267. 

Compromise  tariff,  how  it  affected  the 
labourer,  366. 

Consolidation  of  the  land,  always  the 
companion  of  slavery,  70.  In  ancient 
Italy,  210;  in  Turkey,  129;  in  Scot 
land,  203;  and  in  England,  213.  A 
consequence  of  cheap  labour,  390. 

Coolies  in  Jamaica,  171;  why  their  ex 
port  is  sanctioned,  298. 

Corn  laws,  object  of  their  repeal,  69. 

Cost  of  transportation  in  India,  146. 

Cotton,  declines  in  price  with  the  growth 
of  the  domestic  slave  trade,  111. 
Annual  production  of,  251.  Small 
consumption  of,  and  its  causes,  254. 
Who  profits  by  reduction  in  the  price 
of,  258.  Great  increase  in  the  Rus 
sian  consumption  of,  329.  Causes  of 
its  cheapness,  367.  Great  crops  of, 
from  1842  to  1845,  368.  Manufacture 
of,  in  India,  its  great  extent,  131,  and 
the  causes  of  its  ruin,  144. 

Countries  whose  policy  looks  to  cheap 
ening  labour,  375. 

raising  the  price  of  labour,  375. 

Crime  in  the  older  provinces  of  India, 
153.  Diminishes  as  we  pass  to  the 
newer  provinces,  153.  In  England, 
226.  Increase  of,  in  the  United 
States,  370. 

Crowbar  brigade  of  Ireland,  184. 

Cultivation  of  indigo  abandoned  in 
Jamaica,  74. 


INDEX. 


417 


D. 


Daily  News,  the,  on  Ireland,  188. 

Dallas,  R.  C.,  on  absenteeism,  and  its 
effects  in  Jamaica,  76. 

Decay  of  kindly  feeling  in  England,  233. 

of  towns  in  Ireland,  195 ;  and  in 

England,  287. 

Spain  under  her  ancient  system, 

351. 

Decentralization  of  Germany,  308. 

Decline  in  the  intellectual  condition  of 
Ireland,  277. 

Demoralization  of  the  people  of  Eng 
land,  217. 

Denmark,  how  freedom  grows  in,  340. 

,  naturally  a  poor  country,  340. 

,  her  domestic  industry  protected, 

340. 

,  system  of,  tends  to  the  local  em 
ployment  of  labour  and  capital,  341. 

,  increasing  number  of  small  pro 
prietors  of,  342. 

• ,  largest  proportion  of  the  land  and 

the  best  of  it  in  their  ha^ids,  343. 

,  improving  agriculture  of,  343. 

,  house  accommodation  of,  344. 

• ,  education  in,  344. 

,  leisure  of  the  people  of,  to  be 

happ}7,  amused,  and  educated,  346. 

,  high  intellectual  and  moral  condi 
tion  of  the  people  of,  346. 

,  equality  in,  347. 

• ,  strength  of  the  government  of,  349. 

Diminution  in  the  tendency  to  freedom 
in  the  Southern  States,  and  its  causes, 
116. 

Discord,  a  consequence  of  the  Ricardo- 
Malthusian  system,  398. 

Distant  trade,  extent  of,  regarded  by  the 
modern  English  school  as  the  test  of 
prosperity,  245.  Competition  for,  246. 

Diversification  of  employments,  enables 
man  to  economize  labour,  53.  In 
India  under  the  native  princes,  131. 
In  Russia,  330  ;  Germany,  310;  Spain, 
353;  Belgium,  360. 

Division  of  land,  always  the  companion 
of  freedom,  51.  In  Germany,  313; 
Russia,  337;  Denmark,  342;  Spain, 
352 ;  Belgium,  360.  Its  effects  as  de 
scribed  by  Sisrnondi,  314.  How  af 
fected  by  cheap  and  dear  labour,  390. 

Domestic  industry  protected  in  Ger 
many,  308;  Russia,  326;  Denmark, 
340  ;  Spain,  350  ;  Belgium,  360. 

market  of  Germany,  its  rapid  in 
crease,  309 — of  India  under  the  native 
sovereigns,  139. 


Domestic  slave  trade,  its  causes,  109, 11 3, 
371,  and  its  consequences,  372 — how 
rapidly  increasing,  108 — how  it  may 
be  extinguished,  294. 

Duty  of  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
363,  and  of  those  of  England,  396. 


E. 


Early  settlements  on  the  poor  soils  in 
North  America.,  40 ;  South  America, 
41 ;  Britain,  41 ;  France  and  Italy, 
41 ;  Greece  and  India,  42. 

Earth,  the,  a  great  labour-savings  bank, 
48.  The  sole  producer,  46.  The  great 
bank  from  which  all  capital  is  derived, 
401. 

Economist,  the  London,  on  India,  146; 
on  emigration  from  Ireland  and  Eng 
land,  402. 

Education  in  India,  154 ;  England,  223 ; 
Portugal  and  Turkey,  277 ;  Denmark, 
344;  Germany,  321;  Spain,  356. 

Effect  of  supply  on  price,  384.   :• 

Egypt,  early  settlements  in,  42. 

Emancipation  in  the  British  West  Indies, 
21.  In  South  Africa,  24. 

Emigration  to  the  South-western  States, 
109.  From  India  to  the  Mauritius, 
168;  to  Jamaica,  171.  From  Ireland, 
183;  Scotland,  206;  England,  278, 402. 

Employment  in  Ireland,  scarcity  of,  178. 

England,  export  of  slaves  from,  15.  The 
largest  exporter  of  food  in  the  world, 
112.  Object  of  the  commercial  policy 
of,  70.  How  slavery  grows  in,  209. 
Efforts  of,  to  establish  political  and 
commercial  centralization,  210.  Cen 
tralization  of,  produces  a  necessit}7  fur 
new  markets,  211 — how  regarded  by 
Adam  Smith,  211 — how  it  has  ope 
rated  on  the  West  Indies,  India,  and 
Ireland,  212.  Number  of  land-owners 
in,  in  the  days  of  Adam  Smith,  213 — 
great  reduction  in,  and  causes  thereof, 
213.  System  of,  leads  necessarily  to 
pauperism,  215.  Loss  of  incentive  to 
exertion  in,  216.  Demoralization  of 
the  people  of,  217.  Middle  class  of, 
tends  to  pass  away,  217.  Gloom  of, 

217.  Sensuality  and   gross  vice  of, 

218.  Devotion   of  the  people  of,  10 
the  acquisition  of  wealth,  219.    Smug 
gling  trade  of,  220.     Unsound  moral 
feeling  in,  220.     Interests  of,  always 
opposed  to  those  of  the  rest  of  the 
world,  221.'   False  position  of,   221. 
Unsound   teachings    of  the    political 
instructors  of,  222.     Great  tendency 


418 


INDEX. 


to    slavery  in,    222.     Adam    Smith's 
picture   of  the  present  condition   of, 

223.  Education  of  the  poor  of,  223. 
Small    number    of    schools    in,    225. 
Morals  of  the  manufacturing  districts 
of,  225.     Mr.   Kay  on,  quoted,  219, 

224,  225,  227,  228,  231,  317,  318,  323. 
Growth    of  crime   in,    226.     London 
Times  on,  226,  233,  280,  288.    Poverty 
and  immorality  in,  227.     House  ac 
commodation    in,   227,   228.     Penny 
lodging-houses     of,     228.       Infanti 
cide    in,    229,  230.     London  Leader 
on,    229.     Intellectual    condition    of 
women  in,  230.     Morning   Chronicle 
on    morals    and    manners    of,    230. 
Burial  clubs  of,  231.     Growth  of  in 
temperance  in,  232.     Prostitution  in, 

232.  Condition  of  the  sewing  women 
of,  232.     Decay  of  kindly  feeling  in, 

233.  Starvation  in,  234.     Treatment 
of  maniacs  in,  235.     Mr.  McCulloch 
on  the  absenteeism  of,  240.    Tendency 
of  thq|  politico-economical  system  of, 
241.     Covnmercial   centralization   of, 
its  object  and  effects,   260 — its  ten 
dency  to  discourage  her  own  agricul 
ture,    261,    268.     Exports    of,    263. 
Comparative  view  of  trade  of,  in  1815 
and  1851,  263.     Change  of,  from  pro 
ducer  to  trader,  264.     Agriculture  of, 
Low  discouraged,  266.     Forced  com 
petition  in,  for  sale  of  raw  products, 
266.     Diminution   of  Irish   food  im 
ported  into,  266.     Small  value  of  land 
of,  267.    Land  rental  of,  267.    Farmers 
profits  in,  271.     Labourers  wages  in, 
271.     Total  product  of  agriculture  in, 
271.     Clothing  of  labouring  women 
of,  271.     Strolling  vagabonds  in,  271. 
Comparative   prices    of  commodities 
bought  and  sold  by,  272.     Compara 
tive  exports  of,  273.     Great  system 
of  taxation  by,  275.    Disadvantageous 
change  of  the  position  of,  275.     Re 
venue  of,  how  it  is  maintained  with 
diminished    duties,    276.     Effect    of 
cheap  sugar  and  cotton  on  the  labourer 
of,  276.     Prosperity  of  the  traders  of, 
dependent  on  the  maintenance  of  the 
slave  trade,  276.     Injurious  effect  of 
the  system    of,  on    the    development 
of  intellect,  277.    Newspapers  of,  277. 
Repulsive  character  of  the  system  of, 
278.     Shutting  in  of  the  African  and 
expulsion   of  the   Irishman  by,   279. 
Unsound  political  philosophy  of,  279. 
Claims  of  labour  in,  279.     Rights  to 
property  in,  279.     System  of,  tends  to 


agrarianism,  281.  Gulf  between  the 
farmer  and  the  labourer  in,  282. 
Great  apparent  wealth  of,  283.  Small 
capital  used  in  the  trade  of,  284. 
Cause  of  revulsions  in,  284.  Losses 
by  bankruptcy  in,  285.  Effect  of  re 
vulsions  in,  285.  Cost  of  railroads  in, 
284.  Centralizing  tendency  of  the 
policy  of,  284.  Increasing  consolida 
tion  of  land  in,  286.  How  alone  the 
manufacturing  superiority  of,  may  be 
maintained,  286.  Man  of,  made  for 
cotton  mills,  287.  Growing  political 
centralization  of,  288.  Increasing  de 
pendence  of,  288.  Growing  slavery 
in,  288.  Weakness  of,  289.  Allies 
of,  their  present  condition,  290.  Policy 
of,  forces  competition  among  the  agri 
culturists  of  the  world,  290.  Whole 
policy  of,  found  in  the  maxim  of  "buy 
cheaply  and  sell  dearly,"  291.  Ano 
malous  position  of,  291.  Policy  of, 
looks  to  the  destruction  of  the  power 
of  association,  292.  Absence  of  free 
dom  in,  293.  Export  of  slaves  from, 
how  terminated,  296.  Present  trade 
of,  with  Africa,  297.  Policy  of,  to 
ward  Africa,  as  described  by  Mr.  Pitt, 
297.  Export  of  Coolies,  why  sanc 
tioned  by,  298.  System  of,  compared 
with  that  of  Germany,  318,  319,  323. 
Wretched  cultivation  in  remote  parts 
of,  323.  Contrasted  with  Germany  by 
Mr.  Kay,  323.  Labourer  of,  as  de 
scribed  by  Mr.  Hewitt,  324.  De 
pendent  on  slave  labour  at  home,  374. 
Her  policy  opposed  to  the  extension 
of  freedom  in  Europe,  376.  Her 
interests  and  those  of  the  United 
States  directly  opposed  to  each  other, 
381.  Everywhere  engaged  in  an 
effort  to  destroy  the  value  of  man  at 
home,  382.  Real  interests  of  the  peo 
ple  of,  383.  Why  she  is  inundated 
with  cheap  Irish  labour,  384.  How 
the  labour  of  her  people  was  cheap 
ened,  385.  How  protection  to  Ireland 
would  operate  upon  the  labour  and 
land  of,  387.  System  of,  tends  to 
brutalize  and  enslave  the  people  of 
the  world,  388.  Evil  under  which 
she  labours,  389.  Exports  of,  to  Ger 
many,  392.  Duty  of  the  people  of, 
396.  The  only  country  that  has 
made  the  Ricardo-Malthusian  system 
the  basis  of  its  policy,  399,  Her  want 
of  friends,  400  ;  and  causes  thereof, 
401.  Selfishness  of  the  system  of,  401. 
Emigration  from,  in  1853,402.. 


INDEX. 


419 


England's  treasure  in  foreign  trade,  the 
error  combated  by  Adam  Smith,  64. 

English  factory  law,  violation  of,  373. 

system,  a  war  for  the  perpetuation 

and  extension  of  slavery,  274. 

Entails  in  Scotland,  great  extent  of,  205. 

Equality  in  Germany,  319;  Denmark, 
347  j  Spain,  358. 

Espriella's  letters,  quoted,  297. 

European  policy  in  regard  to  Africa,  297. 

Eviction  in  Ireland,  184,  189,  193 ;  and 
in  England,  226. 

Exchange,  power  of,  grows  with  the 
power  to  produce,  244.  Necessity 
for,  grows  with  diminution  in  the  pro 
ductive  power,  244. 

Exhaustion  of  the  soil  in  America,  103; 
in  India,  148. 

Exportation  of  raw  products,  injurious 
consequences  of  the,  49. 

Export  of  riqe  from  India  in  periods  of 
famine,  169.  Of  grain  from  Ireland, 
181.  Of  cotton  from  India,  143  ;  and 
of  men,  163. 

Exports  of  England  in  1815  and  1851, 
263. 

Expulsion  of  the  people  of  Virginia,  100  ; 
of  Ireland,  194;  and  Scotland,  206. 

F. 

Famines,  Madeira,  119;  Turkey,  128; 
India,  147,  149,  169;  Ireland,  186; 
Scotland,  205. 

Farmers  profits  in  England,  271. 

Finances  of  Portugal,  their  wretched 
condition,  118. 

Fingoes  of  South  Africa,  24. 

Food   in   Ireland,    low   price    of,    195. 

,  cheap,  necessary  to  the  mainte 
nance  of  the  slave  trade,  393. 

Forbes,  Dr.,  on  society  in  Scotland,  208. 

Foreign  produce  imported  into  Great 
Britain  in  1815  and  1851,  274. 

trade  of  India,  160. 

France,  early  settlements  in,  41. 

Franklin,  Dr.,  on  the  importance  of 
domestic  manufactures,  97. 

Freedom  grows  with  the  division  of  the 
land,  and  increase  of  its  value,  51 — and 
with  the  growth  of  towns,  59.  Growth 
of,  in  England  and  Holland,  60;  in 
Germany,  308;  Russia,  326;  Den 
mark,  340  ;  Spain,  350  ;  Belgium,  359. 
Absence  of,  in  England,  293. 

of  the  internal  trade  of  Russia,  330 

— of  local  institutions  of  Russia,  338. 

of  trade  cannot  exist  without  the 

freedom  of  man,  364. 


Free  negro  of  Jamaica  under  the  system 
of  unlimited  competition,  90.  His 
condition  declines  with  increased 
cheapness  of  sugar,  92. 

French  West  Indies,  their  superiority 
over  the  British  colonies,  81. 

Fullarton  on  taxation  in  India,  134. 

G 

Gee,  Joshua,  on  the  prohibition  of  manu 
factures  in  the  colonies,  71. 

Germany,  imports  of,  392. 

Germany,  Northern,  how  freedom  grows 
in,  308.  Its  condition  seventy  years 
since,  308.  Decentralization  of,  308. 
Formation  of  the  great  German  Union, 
or  Zoll-Verein,  309.  Exports  of  wool 
prior  to'  the  Union,  309.  Effect  of 
the  union  upon  the  manufactures  of, 
309.  Present  diversification  of  em 
ployments  in,  310.  Mr.  Kay  on, 
quoted,  310,  311,  312,  313,  and  314,  to 
324.  Mr.  Howitt  on,  310,  325.  Great 
domestic  market  of,  311.  Productive 
ness  of  agriculture  in,  311,  317.  Skill 
of  the  agriculturists  of,  312.  Division 
of  land  in,  313.  Price  of  land  in,  313. 
Growth  of  population  in  313.  In 
crease  of  capital  in,  314.  Frequent 
sales  of  land  in,  315.  Eifects  of  divi 
sion  of  land  in,  316.  Industry  and 
temperance  in,  316.  Rarity  of  pau 
perism  in,  317.  Great  independence 
of  the  people  of,  317.  Consumption 
of  clothing  in,  318.  Condition  of  the 
women  of  318.  Contrast  between  the 
English  system  and  that  of,  318,  319, 
323.  Education  in,  319,  321.  Ten 
dency  to  equality  in,  319.  Amuse 
ments  of  the  people  of,  320.  Moral, 
intellectual,  and  social  condition  of 
the  people  of,  321.  Respect  for  the 
rights  of  property  in,  322.  Main 
tenance  of  public  order  in,  322. 
Labourer  of,  contrasted  with  the 
labourer  of  England,  324.  Contrasted 
with  Ireland,  325. 

Gladstone  on  the  condition  of  the  peo 
ple  of  Naples,  377. 

Glasgow  wynds,  wretchedness  of  their 
inhabitants,  207. 

Gloom  of  England,  217. 

Government  of  Denmark,  its  strength 
and  the  freedom  of  its  people,  349. 

Grain  a  drug  in  India  when  crops  are 
large,  147. 

Great  Britain,  early  settlements  in,  41. 

Greece,  early  settlements  in,  42. 


420 


INDEX. 


Grenada,  slavery  in,  14.  Prohibition 
of  sugar-refining  in,  65. 

Grey,  Lord,  on  the  commercial  policy 
of  Canada,  72. 

Gross  vice  and  sensuality  in  England, 
218. 

Growing  political  centralization  in  Eng 
land,  288.  Growing  slavery  in,  and 
dependence  of,  England,  288. 

Guiana,  effects  of  emancipation  in,  28. 

H. 

Head,  Sir  Francis,  on  Ireland,  quoted, 
192,  195,  200. 

Heber,  Bishop,  his  description  of  the 
present  condition  of  Dacca,  151. 

Higher  law,  the,  tending  to  the  promo 
tion  of  freedom,  295. 

Home  market,  how  it  increases  con 
sumption,  253. 

trade,  the  great  trade,  244. 

Honesty  of  the  people  of  Russia,  332. 

House  accommodation  in  Scotland,  207 ; 
in  England,  227 ;  in  Denmark,  344. 

How  can  slavery  be  extinguished  ?  294. 

cheap  cotton  and  sugar  affect  the 

English  labourer  and  the  British  re 
venue,  276. 

freedom  grows  in  Germany,  308 ; 

Russia,  336  ;  Denmark,  340 ;  Spain, 
350;  Belgium,  359. 

labour  acquires  value,  and  man 

becomes  free,  52. 

man  passes  from  poverty  and  slavery 

toward  freedom,  35;  and  from  wealth 
and  freedom  toward  slavery,  62. 

protection  affects  commerce,  392. 

slavery  grew,  and  is  now  maintain 
ed  in  the  West  Indies,  74;  and  in  the 
United  States,  95. 

slaverj'   grows    in   Portugal   and 

Turkey,    117;    India,    130;    Ireland, 
174;  Scotland,  202;  England,  209. 

the  export  of  slaves  from  England 

was  terminated,  296. 

• to   stop  the  export  of  man  from 

Africa,  Ireland,  and  Virginia,  299. 
—  wealth  tends  to  increase,  43. 

Howitt  on  the  condition  of  the  people  of 
Germany,  310,  324. 

Huskisson,  Mr.,  his  advice  to  his  coun 
trymen,  113. 


I. 


Illinois,  "lew  slave  law  of,  375. 
India,  how  slavery  grows  in,  130.     Her 
great  system  of  voluntary  association, 


130.  Col.  Briggs  on  the  land-tax  of, 

131.  Great  extent  of  the  cotton  manu 
facture  of,  under  the  native  sovereigns 
of,  131.    Local  subdivision  of  employ 
ment  in,  132.     Company's   claim   to 
land-tax  of,  133.     Company's  mono 
poly  of  trade  in,  133.    Zemindary  set 
tlement  in,  133.     Ryotwar  settlement 
in,  133.     Mr.  Fullarton's  account  of, 
134.    Thompson's  lectures  on,  quoted, 
134,  149,   150,    169.     Half  of  gross 
produce  of,  taken  as  rent,  135.    Taxes 
of,  as   given  by  Mr.  Rickards,    135. 
Perfect  centralization  of,  137.    Manu 
facture  and  collection  of  salt  prohibited 
in,  137.     Distribution  of  revenue  in, 

138.  Col.  Sleeman  on,  quoted,   138, 
148,154,  165, 172.     Domestic  markets 
of,  under  the  native  sovereigns,  139. 
Abundance  of  coal  and  iron  ore  in, 

139.  Great  export  of  cotton   goods 
from,  141 .    Opening  of  the  trade  with, 
141.     Prohibition   of  export  of  ma 
chinery  to,  141.     Taxation  of  native 
machinery  in,  141.  Petition  of  natives 
of,  relative  to   duties  on  cotton  and 
silk,  142.     Gradual  rise  of  the  export 
of  raw  cotton  from,  143.     Ruin  and 
distress  attendant  upon  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  cotton  manufacture  of,  144.. 
Measures  by  which  that  destruction 
was  effected  in,  144.     Diminished  de 
mand  for  the  labour  of  women  and 
children   in,    144.     Taxation   of  the 
cotton  grower  of,  145.    Mr.  Bright  on, 
quoted,  145,  152.     Loss    of  time  in, 
146.     Mr.  Chapman  on,  quoted,  146, 
149,    164.     Economist   (London)   on, 
quoted,  146.    Enormous  cost  of  trans 
portation  in,  146.     Waste  of  raw  pro 
ducts  in,  147.     Large  crops  in,  make 
grain  a  drug,  147.     Small  crops   in, 
accompanied   by   famines,   147.     No 
capital    accumulated    in,    148.     Ex 
haustion  of  the  land  of,  148.   Destruc 
tion  of  trees  in,  and  its  effects,  148. 
Abandonment  of  land  in,  149,  151. 
Tendency  toward  barbarism  in,   149. 
Famines  and  pestilences  in,  149,  169. 
High  rate  of  interest  in,  150.    Slavery 
in,  151.     Great  extent  of  waste  land 
in,  151.     Bishop   Heber   on,  quoted, 
151.      Campbell's    Modern,    quoted, 
153,  157,  160,  164.     Great  extent  of 
crime   in   the   older  provinces,   153. 
Poverty  of  cultivator  in   those  pro 
vinces,  153.     Diminution  of  crime  as 
we  pass  to  the  newer  territories  of, 
153.    Perjury  in,  154.    Education  in, 


INDEX. 


421 


154,  277.  Postal  revenue  of,  154. 
Intemperance  in,  154.  Opium  trade 
of,  155,  412.  Salt  monopoly  of,  158. 
Large  public  debt  of,  158.  Gross  land 
revenue  of,  ]  58.  Value  of  land  in,  159, 
167.  A  paying  country  under  the 
native  princes,  160.  Small  foreign 
trade  of,  160.  Mr.  Anstey  on,  quoted, 
161.  Cause  of  pestilences  in,  161. 
Export  of  men  from,  163.  Central 
ization  increasing  in,  163.  Diminished 
tendency  of  the  transfer  of  British 
capital  to,  163.  Speculation  in,  164. 
Small  export  of  iron  to,  164.  Pro 
jected  fairs  in,  164.  Present  war  of, 
with  Burmah — its  object,  165.  High 
character  of  the  people  of,  165.  Emi 
grants  from,  their  condition  in  the 
Mauritius,  168,  and  in  Jamaica,  171. 
Export  of  food  from,  169.  Slave  trade 
of,  171.  Little  tendency  to  Christianity 
»n.  and  cause  thereof,  172.  How 
Christianity  may  be  promoted  in, 
173. 

Infanticide  in  Turkey,  128 ;  and  in  Eng 
land,  229. 

Inglis's  Travels  in  Ireland,  quoted,  178. 

Insurrection  acts  in  Ireland,  178. 

Intellectual  condition  of  Scotland  and 
England,  277;  Germany,  321;  Den 
mark,  346  ;  Spain,  356. 

Intemperance  in  India,  154;  Scotland, 
207;  England,  232.  Present  increase 
of,  in  the  United  States,  370. 

Ireland,  how  slavery  grows  in,  174. 
Discouragement  of  woollen  manufac 
ture  of,  174.  Ships  of,  deprived  of 
the  benefit  of  the  navigation  laws,  174. 
Declared  independent  in  1783,  175. 
Large  book  trade  of — before  the 
Union,  175.  Union  of— with  Eng 
land,  176.  Effect  of  the  union  on  the 
manufactures  of,  176.  Mr.  J.  B. 
Byles  on,  quoted,  177.  Insurrection 
acts  in,  178.  Scarcity  of  employment 
in,  178.  Low  wages  in,  178.  Inglis's 
Travels  in,  quoted,  178.  Kohl's  travels 
in,  quoted,  179.  Capital  of,  trans 
ferred  to  England,  180.  Export  of 
grain  from,  181.  Exhaustion  of  the 
land  of,  181.  Cause  of  absenteeism 
in,  181.  Thackeray's  Travels  in, 
quoted,  182.  People  of,  "starving  by 
millions,"  182.  Unoccupied  lands  of, 
their  great  extent,  182.  Emigration 
from,  183.  Poor  laws  of,  184.  Crow 
bar  brigade  of,  184.  Destruction  of 
houses  in,  184.  Eviction  in,  described, 
184.  Slavery  in,  185.  London  Times 


on,  quoted,  185,  187,  188,  189,  191. ' 
Famine  in,  186.  Effect  of  the  repeal 
of  the  corn  laws  on,  186.  New  law 
for  the  sale  of  land  in,  187.  Dimi 
nished  population  of,  187,  192.  Daily 
News  on,  quoted,  188.  Evictions  in, 

189,  193.     T.  F.  Meagher  on,  quoted, 

190.  Destruction  of  manufactures  in, 
190.     Causes  of  the  decline  of,  192. 
Sir  Francis  Head  on,  quoted,  192,  195, 
200.     Extent  of  political  freedom  in, 
193.    Women  of,  their  great  morality, 
200.     Decay  of  towns  in,  195.     Small 
value  of  land  in,  195.     Low  prices  of 
foodin,195.  Mr.McCulloch  on,  quoted, 
196.     Effect  of  commercial  centraliza 
tion  in,  197.     Mr.  McCulloch  on  ab 
senteeism    in,    197.     Mr.  Senior   on 
absenteeism  in,  198.     Real  effects  of 
absenteeism  in,  198.     Supposed  over 
population  of,  200.     Has  become  an 
importer  of  food,  267.    Decline  in  the 
intellectual   condition  of  the    people 
of,  277.     Address  of  the  people  of,  to 
the   people   of  England,   304.     Why 
she  exports  men,  384.    Why  her  people 
fly  to  England,  384.     Cheap  labour 
of,  produces  cheap  labour  in  England, 
385.     How  protection  would  operate 
in,  386.     Emigration  from,  in  1853, 
402. 

Iron,  export  of,  to  India,  164. 


J. 


Jamaica,  of  slavery  in,  8.  Great  mor 
tality  of  slaves  in,  11.  Number  of 
slaves  imported  into,  11.  Slaves 
emancipated  in,  12.  Fertility  of,  25. 
Mr.  Bigelow  on,  quoted,  25,  27,  171. 
Effects  of  emancipation  in,  26.  Pro 
perties  abandoned  in,  26.  Cheapness 
of  land  in,  27.  Decline  in  population 
of,  28.  London  Times  on  emancipa 
tion  in,  31.  Prospective  Review  on 
do.  32.  Cultivation  of  indigo  aban 
doned  in,  74.  Legislature  of,  imposes 
a  duty  on  the  import  of  slaves,  75. 
Absenteeism,  its  causes  and  effects, 
76,  80.  Numerous  sales  of  land  for 
debt  in,  76.  Heavy  taxes  on  produce 
of,  imported  into  England,  76,  82. 
Distribution  of  proceeds  of  the  rum 
and  sugar  of,  83.  Land-owners  of, 
slaves  to  the  people  of  England,  83. 
Absence  of  regular  employment  in, 
87.  Taxation  of,  in  1831,  for  sup 
port  of  British  government,  84.  Di 
minution  in  the  exports  of,  85.  <» Causes 


422  INDEX. 


of  the  failure  of  emancipation  in,  87. 
Return  of  properties  abandoned  in, 
1852,  399. 

K. 

Kay,  Mr.  J.,  on  the  social  condition  of 
England,  quoted,  219  to  231.  Ger 
many,  quoted,  310  to  324. 

Kindly  feeling  among  the  Russians,  333. 

Kohl's  Ireland,  quoted,  178. 


Labour,  claims  of,  how  regarded  in 
England,  279.  No  competition  for 
the  purchase  of,  where  all  are  farmers, 
294.  Necessity  in  England  for  cheap, 
374.  Waste  of,  in  transporting  raw 
produce,  257.  The  most  perishable 
of  all  commodities,  384. 

Land  and  labour  have  one  common 
interest,  276. 

Land,  division  of,  necessary  to  the 
growth  of  freedom,  51.  Division  of, 
in  Germany,  313;  Russia,  336;  Den 
mark,  342  ;  Spain,  352 ;  Belgium,  360. 
Consolidation  of,  in  Great  Britain,  213  ; 
England,  286.  Abandonment  of,  in 
Jamaica,  27;  Turkey,  128;  India, 
149.  Small  value  of,  in  Jamaica,  27 ; 
Ireland,  195 ;  England,  268.  Increas 
ing  value  of,  in  Germany,  313;  Spain, 
356. 

Land-tax  of  India,  131,  133,  158. 

Leader,  the  London,  on  infanticide  in 
England,  229. 

Liberia,  republic  of,  299. 

Loss  of  time  in  India,  146. 

M. 

McCulloch,  Mr.,  on  Ireland,  196;  his 
differences  with  Adam  Smith,  236; 
his  views  on  absenteeism,  239,  260 ; 
his  estimate  of  the  value  to  man  of 
the  power  of  steam,  and  other  natural 
agents,  249. 

Machinery,  its  export  from  England 
prohibited,  95. 

Macpherson  on  slavery  in  the  West 
Indies,  9. 

Madeira,  famine  in,  119. 

Malthusian  system,  foundation  of  the,  67. 

Man  has  become  free  as  labour  has  in 
creased  in  value,  294.  Supposed  to 
have  been  made  for  cotton  mills,  287. 

Maniacs  in  England,  their  treatment, 
235. 


Manufactures  in  America  prohibited,  95. 
Of  Turkey,  121;  their  decline,  122, 
127.  Of  Portugal,  their  rudeness,  118. 
Of  Ireland,  decline  of,  190.  Of  India, 
measures  used  for  their  destruction, 
142  ;  and  their  effect  on  the  condition 
of  the  people,  144.  Unknown  in 
Russia  fifty  years  since,  326 ;  their 
present  high  condition,  327.  Of  Ger 
many,  309;  and  of  Spain,  352. 

Manure,  its  importance  overlooked  by 
the  English  economists,  199. 

Maroon  war  of  Jamaica,  10. 

Martinique,  its  superior  social  condi 
tion,  81. 

Massachusetts,  value  of  land  in,  269. 

Master  of  slaves  himself  a  slave,  383. 

Meagher,  Mr.  J.  F.,  on  Ireland,  190. 

Mecklenburgh,  value  of  land  in,  48. 

Middle  class  of  England  tends  to  pass 
away,  217. 

Mill,  Mr.  James,  his  views  of  the  con 
stantly  increasing  difficulty  of  obtain 
ing  food,  68 ;  the  only  British  econo 
mist  who  has  had  the  courage  to  carry 
out  the  Ricardo-Malthusian  system, 
408. 

Mr.  J.  S.,  on  the  law  of  the  occu 
pation  of  land,  237  ;  on  the  rights  to 
landed  property  in  England,  280. 

Misery  of  the  people  of  Turkey,  128 ; 
Ireland,  1 82 ;  Scotland,  204. 

Missions,  religious,  in  India,  causes  of 
the  failure  of,  172. 

Modern  commercial  policy,  tendency  of, 
246. 

political  economy  totally  opposed 

to  that  of  Adam  Smith,  247 — regards 
commerce  as  an  inverted  pyramid,  248. 

Monopoly  of  trade  in  India,  133. 

Morals  and  manners  in  England,  225, 
230. 


N. 


Naples,  despotism  of  the  king  of,  377. 

Natural  agents,  their  great  value  to  man, 
249.  Desire  of  England  to  monopo 
lize  their  services,  250. 

allies  of  the  people  of  the  United 

States,  381. 

division  of  employments  in  Russia, 

330. 

political  economy,  406. 

Negro  population  of  the  United  States, 
its  increase,  108. 

trade  of  the  Carolinas,  108, 112, 114. 

New  Orleans  prison,  treatment  of  slaves 
in  the,  372. 


INDEX. 


423 


Newspapers  of  England,  276;  of  Spain, 

357. 
New  York,  exhaustion  of  the  soil  in,  104 ; 

value  of  land  in,  270  ;  wealth  of,  282. 
Northern  States,  their  large  production 

as  compared  with  those  of  the  South, 

106. 

0. 

Object  of  all  sound  political  economy, 
287. 

British  commercial  policy,  250. 

Obrok,  payment  of,  in  Russia,  334. 
Opening  of  the  trade  with  India,  and  its 

effects,  141. 

Opium  trade  of  India,  155;  its  present 
enormous  extent,  412. 

Over  population  of  Ireland,  the  sup 
posed,  200. 

P. 

Palmerston,  Lord,  on  slavery  in  Cuba, 

162. 
Pauperism  a  necessary  consequence  of 

the  English  system,  215.     Rarity  of, 

in  Germany,  316. 

Penny  lodging-houses  of  England,  228. 
Perjury  in  India,  154. 
Pestilences  of  India,  149,  161;  of  Ire 
land,  186;  of  Turkey,  128. 
Petition    of    native    manufacturers    of 

India,  142. 
Pitt,  Mr.,  on  the  commerce  of  England 

with  Africa,  297. 
Planting  States,  exhaustion  of  the  soil 

in  the,  107. 
Political  and  commercial  centralization 

established  by  England,  210. 

philosophy  of  England,  279. 

freedom  in  Ireland,  its  extent,  193. 

Poor  laws  of  Ireland,  183 ;  of  England, 

214. 

Popular  element  in  Spain,  358. 
Population,  decline  of,  in  Jamaica,  28 ; 

in  Portugal,  118 ;  in  Turkey,  123, 128 ; 

in   Ireland,  187,   192.     Attracted   to 

Russia  and  Spain,  339 ;  Of  Scotland, 

207.     Growth  of,  in  Germany,  312. 
Portugal,  how  slavery  grows  in,  117; 

absence  of  manufactures  in,  and  cause 

thereof,  118  ;  decline  of  population  in, 

118;  finances  of,  118. 
Poverty  of  the  cultivators  of  Southern 

India,  153;  of  Ireland,  179;  and  of 

Scotland,  204. 

and  immorality  in  England,  227. 

Postal  service  of  Portugal,  118. 
revenue  of  ludia,  154. 


Present   high   rents    of  Scotland,    and 

their  effects,  206. 
Prohibition    of    manufactures    in    the 

colonies,  Gee  on  the,  71. 
of  the  export  of  machinery  to  India, 

141. 

Projected  fairs  in  India,  their  objoct,164. 
Pro-slavery  feeling,  its  first  appearance, 

107  ;  growth  of,  374. 
Prospective  Review  on  slave  cultivation, 

103 ;  and  on  the  advantage  of  cheap 

cotton,  111. 
Prosperity  generally  measured   by  the 

extent  of  distant  trade,  245. 
of  England,  how  obtained,  92,  271, 

275. 
Prostitution    in   England,  232;  in   the 

United  States,  368. 
Protection,  object  of,  393 ;  how  it  affects 

commerce,   392.     In  Germany,  308 ; 

in  Russia,  326;  in  Denmark,  340;  in 

Spain,  350  ;  in  Belgium,  360  ;  and  in 

the  United  States,  365.    How  it  would 

operate  in  Ireland,  387. 
Prussia,  King  of,  his  measures  tend  to 
ward  freedom,  380. 
Public  debt  of  India,  158;  of  Belgium, 

359. 
order  in  Germany,  322. 

R. 

Railroads  of  England,  real  investment 
of  capital  in,  284. 

of  Spain,  355. 

Repulsive  tendencies  of  the  English 
system,  278. 

Responsibility  for  the  domestic  slave 
trade,  upon  whom  it  must  rest,  115. 

Revulsions  in  England,  causes  of,  285. 

Rents  low,  of  Scotland,  in  the  last 
century,  203. 

Republic  of  Liberia,  299;  supposed  ad 
dress  of  the,  to  the  people  of  England, 
300. 

Revenue  of  England,  how  it  is  main 
tained,  276. 

of  India  dependent  on  the  opium 

trade,  156,  412. 

Ricardo,  Mr.,  his  law  of  the  occupation 
of  the  earth,  67.  Fundamental  error 
of  his  system,  236. 

Ricardo-Malthusian  system,  proposi 
tions  containing  the,  396;  selfishness 
of  its  tendencies,  398;  teaches  repul 
sion,  despair,  and  death,  399. 

Richmond,  Va.,  sale  of  slaves  in,  371. 

Rickards,  Mr.,  on  the  taxation  of  India, 
135. 


424 


INDEX. 


Rights  to  landed  property  now  being 
discussed  in  England,  279;  highly 
respected  in  Germany,  322. 

Rochester  flouring  mills,  255. 

Rotation  of  crops  cannot  take  place  at 
a  distance  from  market,  104. 

Ruffin,  Mr.,  on  the  agriculture  of  Vir 
ginia,  101. 

Ruin  in  India  from  the  destruction  of 
the  cotton  manufacture,  144. 

Russia,  how  freedom  grows  in,  326. 
Distinguished  for  its  adoption  of  the 
policy  advocated  by  Adam  Smith,  326. 
Manufactures  unknown  in,  fifty  years 
since,  326.  Now  supplies  the  markets 
of  Central  Asia  with  cloths,  326.  Tri 
umphant  in  the  great  exhibition,  327. 
Her  progress  as  compared  with  that 
of  Turkey,  327.  Her  policy  favour 
able  to  direct  intercourse  with  the 
world,  328.  Great  increase  in  con 
sumption  of  cotton  in,  329.  Great 
freedom  in  the  internal  trade  of,  330. 
Natural  division  of  employments  in, 
330.  The  Russian  everywhere  at 
home  in,  331.  Rarity  of  frauds  in, 
332.  General  kindly  feeling  among 
the  people  of,  333.  Payment  of  obrok 
in,  334.  Shortened  duration  of  the 
military  service  required  for  emanci 
pation  in,  334.  Serf  declared  an  in 
tegral  portion  of  the  soil  in,  335. 
Great  increase  in  the  number  of  crown 
peasants  in,  335.  Grant  of  civil 
rights  to  the  serf  in,  336.  Serf  of, 
becomes  free  by  the  purchase  of  the 
soil  he  cultivates  in,  336.  Steady  in 
crease  in  the  number  of  free  men  in, 
337.  Light  taxation  of  the  peasant 
in,  337.  Freedom  in  the  local  insti 
tutions  of,  338.  System  of,  attractive 
of  population,  339. 

Ryotwar  settlement  of  India,  134. 

s. 

Salt  monopoly  of  India,  137,  158. 

Savings  resulting  from  proximity  to 
market,  244. 

Schools  in  England,  their  small  num 
ber,  225. 

,  in  Denmark,  344;  and  in  Spain, 

356. 

Scotland,  how  slavery  grows  in,  202. 
Efleets  of  centralization  in,  202.  Low 
rents  in,  in  the  last  century,  203. 
Clearances  in  the  North  of,  203,  204. 
Substitution  of  sheep  for  men  in,  203. 
Thornton  on,  quoted,  204,  Misery  of 


the  people  in  the  North  and  West  of, 

204.  Famine  in  the  Western  Isles  of, 

205.  Great  extent  of  entails  in,  205. 
Present  high  rents  of,  206.     Expul 
sion  of  population  of,  206.     Popula 
tion   and   inhabited   houses    of,  207. 
Intemperance  in,  207.     Dr.  Forbes  on 
the  state  of  society  in,  quoted,  208. 
People  of,  becoming  more  and  more 
separated  into  two  great  classes,  the 
very  poor,   and   the   very  rich,   208. 
Decline  in  the  intellectual  condition 
of  the  people  of,  277. 

Seabrook,  Gov.,  his  account  of  South 
Carolina,  101. 

Selfishness  of  British  commercial  policy, 
250,  401 ;  selfishness  and  Christianity 
cannot  go  together,  410. 

of  Ricardo  -  Malthusian  political 

economy,  409. 

Senior,  Mr.  N.  W.,  on  absenteeism,  198. 

Serf  of  Russia  attached  to  the  land,  335  ; 
civil  rights  secured  to  the,  336. 

Sewing  women  of  England,  232;  of 
New  York  and  Philadelphia,  368. 

Sheep  substituted  for  men  in  Scotland, 
203. 

Sismondi,  Mr.,  on  the  effects  of  division 
of  land,  313. 

Slavery,  wide  extent  of,  5  ;  in  Jamaica, 
8;  in  St.  Vincent's,  12;  in  Guiana, 
13 ;  in  Trinidad,  14 ;  in  Grenada, 
14;  and  in  the  United  States,  15. 
Contrast  between  that  of  the  United 
States  and  the  British  colonies,  20. 
Grows  with  consolidation  of  the  land, 
70.  How  it  grew,  and  how  it  is 
maintained  in  the  West  Indies,  74 ; 
and  in  the  United  States,  95.  How 
it  grows  in  Portugal,  117  ;  in  Turkey, 
120;  in  India,  130;  in  Ireland,  174; 
in  Scotland,  202;  and  in  England, 
209.  Increasing  tendency  toward,  in 
England,  288.  How  it  is  to  be  ex 
tinguished,  294.  Decline  of,  in  Ger 
many,  308 ;  in  Russia,  326 ;  in  Den 
mark,  340 ;  in  Spain,  350 ;  and  in 
Belgium,  359. 

white,  in  the  United  States,  370 ; 

how  it  is  to  be  eradicated  from,  393. 

grows  in  all  the  countries  under 

the  control  of  England,  411. 

Slave  trade,  the,  its  present  increase, 
and  the  causes  thereof,  108  ;  of  India, 
171.  How  it  may  be  terminated,  296. 
Indispensable  to  the  supply  of  cheap 
cotton  and  sugar,  373. 

Sleeman's  Col.,Rambles  in  India,quoted, 
138,  148,  154,  165,  172. 


INDEX. 


425 


Smith,  jfdam,  his  exhibition  of  the 
natural  tendency  of  the  artisan  to 
t:ike  his  place  by  the  side  of  the  pro 
ducer  of  food  and  wool,  50.  His  view 
of  the  superior  cultivation  of  the  small 
proprietor,  51.  On  the  employment 
of  capital,  62.  On  commercial  cen 
tralization,  211.  His  picture  of  Eng 
land,  223.  Starting  point  of  his 
system,  236.  Had  no  faith  in  the 
productive  power  of  ships  and  wagons, 
238.  Favours  the  local  application 
of  capital,  238.  His  idea  of  com 
merce,  241.  His  preference  for  the 
home  trade,  247.  His  school  totally 
different  from  the  modern  English 
one.  247.  Regarded  commerce  as 
forming  a  true  pyramid,  248.  His 
system  adopted  by  Russia,  326. 

Smuggling  trade  of  England,  220. 

in  Spain.  351. 

South  Africa,  emancipation  in,  24. 

South  Carolina,  population  of,  at  differ 
ent  periods,  and  ratio  of  increase, 
107. 

Southern  States,  small  production  of,  as 
compared  with  those  of  the  North, 
106.  Consolidation  of  land  in,  112. 

Spain,  how  freedom  grows  in,  35.0. 
Former  policy  of,unfavourable  to  com- 
merce,350.  Decay  of,under  her  ancient 
system,  351.  Great  extent  of  smug 
gling  in,  351.  Recent  division  of, 
land  in,  352.  Increase  of  manufac 
tures  in,  352.  "Wallis  on,  quoted,  353, 
354  to  358.  Improved  agriculture  of, 
354.  Growth  of  railroads  in,  355. 
Education  in,  356.  Great  increase  of 
the  value  of  land  in,  356.  Increased 
commerce  of,  357.  Newspapers  of, 
357.  Sense  of  equality  in,  358.  The 
popular  element  fully  at  work  in, 
358. 

Speculation  in  India  declines  with  the 
increasing  poverty  of  the  people, 
164. 

Starvation  in  England,  234. 

Stephenson,  Hon.  A.,  on  the  agriculture 
of  Virginia,  98. 

Strolling  vagabonds  in  England,  271. 

St.  Vincent's,  slavery  in,  12. 

Sugar,  heavy  taxes  paid  by  the  negroes 
of  Jamaica  on,  75. 

,  cheap,  cost  at  which  it  is  obtained, 

92. 

,  stock  of,  and  prices,  in  1851  and 

1852,  93. 

Supposed  monopoly  of  the  corn  trade  in 
the  Middle  States,  its  effects,  255. 


Surplus  labour,  its  injurious   effect  on 

the  wages  of  all  labour,  55. 
Supply  and  demand,  effects  upon  price, 

384. 

T. 

Tariff  of  1842,  effects  of,  366. 

1846,  its  effects,  368. 

Taxation  of  native  machinery  in  India, 
141 ;  of  the  cotton-grower  of  India, 
145  ;  and  of  the  world  by  England,275. 

,  light,  in  Russia,  337. 

Temperance  in  Germany,  315;  and  in 
Denmark,  348. 

Tendency  of  English  political  economy, 
241. 

modern  commercial  policy,  246. 

Thackeray's,  Mr.,  description  of  the  con 
dition  of  the  people  of  Ireland,  182. 

Theory,  new,  of  the  occupation  of  the 
earth,  40. 

Thompson's  lectures  on  India,  quoted, 
134,  149,  150,  169. 

Thornton  on  over-population,  quoted, 
204. 

Times,  London,  on  Ireland,  quoted,  185 
to  191  j  on  England,  226,  233,  280, 
288. 

Tobacco,  how  taxed  in  England  in  1750, 
97. 

,  small  proportion  of  the  proceeds 

of,  that  reaches  the  planter,  110. 

Trade  of  England  in  1815  and  1851,  263, 
273. 

Turkey,  insignificance  of  the,  126. 

Traders  and  governments  of  the  world 
have  one  common  interest,  276. 

Trinidad,  slavery  in,  14. 

Turkey,  how  slavery  grows  in,  120. 
Great  natural  advantages  of,  120. 
Commercial  system  of,  120.  Di 
rect  taxation  in,  121.  Manufac 
tures  of,  in  1798,  121.  Manufac 
tures  of,  great  decline  therein,  122, 
127.  Wages  in,  123,  128.  Abandon 
ment  of  land  in,  123,  128.  Diminu 
tion  of  the  population  of,  123,  128. 
Absence  of  local  facilities  of  exchange 
in,  124.  Moral  effect  of  the  com 
mercial  system  of,  125.  Cheapness 
of  land  in,  125,  129.  Slavery  of  the 
people  of,  125,  128.  Sinallness  of  the 
trade^of,  internal  and  external,  126. 
Political  weakness  of,  126.  Famines 
in,  128.  Child-murder  in,  128.  Rude-, 
ness  of  agricultural  machinery  in,  128. 
Progress  of,  compared  with  that  of 
Russia,  327.  Her  people  would  gain 
by  her  absorption  by  Russia,  381. 


36* 


426 


INDEX. 


u. 

Union  of  Ireland  with  England,  effects 
of  the,  176. 

German  or  Zoll-  Verein,  formation 

of  the,  308. 

United  Kingdom,  population  of,  de 
pendent  on  agriculture,  and  amount 
of  their  earnings,  271 ;  rental  of,  268. 

United  States,  slavery  in  the,  15.  Slaves 
imported  from  England  into  the,  16. 
Black  population  of,  at  different 
periods,  17;  ratio  of  increase  of,  108. 
Their  slave  system  compared  with 
that  of  the  British  colonies,  20.  The 
duty  of  the  people  of,  363.  Unsteadi 
ness  in  policy  of,  365.  Condition  of 
the  labourer  of,  in  1841-2,  366.  Effects 
of  the  tariff  of  1842  in,  366.  Cause 
of  the  cheapness  of  cotton  in,  368. 
Increasing  centralization  of,  and  its 
effects,  368.  White  slavery  in,  370. 
Increasing  intemperance  and  crime 
in,  370.  Sales  of  slaves  in,  371. 
Cause  of  slave  trade  in,  373.  Anti- 
slavery  and  pro-slavery  in,  374. 
Slavery  now  travelling  North  in,  375. 
Natural  allies  of,  380.  England  bene 
fits  by  protection  in,  383.  Their 
interests  directly  the  opposite  of  those 
of  England,  381. 

Universality  of  the  real  politico-econo 
mical  laws,  407. 

Unoccupied  lands  of  India,  great  extent 
of  the,  151;  and  of  Ireland,  182. 

Unsound  moral  feeling  in  England,  220. 

V. 

Value  of  land  in  Jamaica,  27 ;  Turkey, 
125,  129;  in  India,  159,  167;  in  Ire 
land,  195;  in  England,  268;  in  Mas 
sachusetts,  269;  and  in  New  York, 
270. 

Virginia,  her  agriculture  as  described 
by  Mr.  Stephenson,  98;  and  by  Mr. 
Baffin,  101;  expulsion  of  her  popula 
tion,  100;  slow  growth  of  her  popula 
tion,  and  its  causes,  102 ;  its  amount 
at  different  periods,  and  the  ratio  of 
its  increase,  107;  results  of  her  de 
pendence  on  a  single  crop,  109; 
amount  of  taxation  on  her  tobacco, 
110 ;  unable  to  convert  her  corn  into 
cloth  or  iron,  is  compelled  to 


facture  it  into  slaves  for  expert,  113  ; 
proposed  expulsion  of  free  negroes 
from,  115 ;  waste  of  labour  in,  245, 
395 ;  address  of  the  people  of,  302  ; 
how  a  domestic  market  for  food  would 
affect  slavery  in,  393. 
Voluntary  association  in  India,  130. 

w. 

Wages  in  Turkey,  123;  India,  152;  Ire 
land,  178 ;  England,  270,  403. 

Waste  land  of  Turkey,  128;  India,  151  ; 
and  Ireland,  182. 

of  labour,  where  there  is  no  variety 

of  employment,  53.  In  India,  146; 
in  Ireland,  178  ;  and  in  Virginia,  245. 
Caused  by  British  commercial  policy, 
254. 

of  raw  produce  in  India,  147. 

Weakness  of  England,  288. 

Wealth,  how  it  tends  to  increase,  43. 

,  grows  as  men  combine  their  efforts, 

49. 
,  apparent,  of  England,  282. 

West  India  emancipation,  operation  of, 
21. 

Indies,  abandonment  of  land  in, 

in  1852,  399. 

What  are  the  laws  instituted  for  the 
government  of  man  ?  404. 

White  slavery  in  the  United  States, 
370. 

Why  is  it  that  men  sell  their  fellow- 
men  ?  295, 

Wide  extent  of  slavery,  5. 

Woollen  manufacturers  of  Ireland  dis 
couraged,  174. 

Woman,  always  the  severest  sufferer  in 
a  state  of  slavery,  7. 

,  debasing    effect    of    the    British 

system  on  the  condition  of,  414. 

Women  of  England,  address  of  the,  6  ; 
entitled  to  much  credit  for  bringing 
the  question  of  slavery  before  the 
world,  413.  Of  India,  little  demand 
for  their  labour,  144.  Remarkable 
chastity  of  those  of  Ireland,  200. 
Condition  of  those  of  Germany,  318  ; 
of  England,  230. 

z. 

Zemindary,  settlement  in  India,  134. 
Zoll  -  Verein,  formation  of  the,  308. 


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